System and method of reserving a specific queue pair number for proprietary management traffic in a high-performance computing environment

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods of reserving a specific queue pair number for proprietary management traffic in a subnet of a high performance computing environment. An exemplary embodiment can provide a host channel adapter (HCA), including a control circuit with a processor and a memory, and at least one port operative to connect the HCA to a network fabric. Additionally, the HCA can include a subnet management agent (SMA) that executes on the HCA, and a configurable attribute stored in the memory of the HCA. A communication including a number value, can be received by the subnet management agent from a subnet manager of the subnet. The value of the configurable attribute can be set equal to the value of the received number. A QP number that corresponds to the set number value of the configurable attribute can then be reserved for sending and receiving proprietary network management traffic.

CLAIM OF PRIORITY AND CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit of priority to U.S. Provisionalpatent application entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING USING ADMINPARTITIONS TO CORRELATE RESOURCE ACCESS AND OWNERSHIP IN A HIGHPERFORMANCE COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT”, Application No. 62/287,712, filed onJan. 27, 2016, which is hereby incorporated by reference in itsentirety.

This application is related to the following patent applications, eachof which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety:

U.S. patent application entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR CORRELATINGFABRIC-LEVEL GROUP MEMBERSHIP WITH SUBNET-LEVEL PARTITION MEMBERSHIP INA HIGH-PERFORMANCE COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT”, application Ser. No.15/415,620, filed Jan. 25, 2017 (Attorney Docket No. ORACL-05711US1);

U.S. patent application entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR SUPPORTINGON-DEMAND SETUP OF LOCAL HOST CHANNEL ADAPTER PORT PARTITION MEMBERSHIPIN A HIGH-PERFORMANCE COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT”, application Ser. No.______, filed ______, 2017 (Attorney Docket No. ORACL-05712US0);

U.S. patent application entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD OF ASSIGNING ADMINPARTITION MEMBERSHIP BASED ON SWITCH CONNECTIVITY IN A HIGH-PERFORMANCECOMPUTING ENVIRONMENT”, application Ser. No. 15/415,644, filed Jan. 25,2017 (Attorney Docket No. ORACL-05713US0);

U.S. patent application entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DEFINING VIRTUALMACHINE FABRIC PROFILES OF VIRTUAL MACHINES IN A HIGH-PERFORMANCECOMPUTING ENVIRONMENT”, application Ser. No. 15/415,668, filed Jan. 25,2017 (Attorney Docket No. ORACL-05714US0);

U.S. patent application entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD OF HOST-SIDECONFIGURATION OF A HOST CHANNEL ADAPTER (HCA) IN A HIGH-PERFORMANCECOMPUTING ENVIRONMENT”, application Ser. No. 15/415,683, filed Jan. 25,2017 (Attorney Docket No. ORACL-05715US0);

U.S. patent application entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD OF INITIATINGVIRTUAL MACHINE CONFIGURATION ON A SUBORDINATE NODE FROM A PRIVILEGEDNODE IN A HIGH-PERFORMANCE COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT”, application Ser. No.15/415,698, filed Jan. 25, 2017 (Attorney Docket No. ORACL-05716US0);

U.S. patent application entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR APPLICATION OFVIRTUAL HOST CHANNEL ADAPTER CONFIGURATION POLICIES IN AHIGH-PERFORMANCE COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT”, application Ser. No.15/415,709, filed Jan. 25, 2017 (Attorney Docket No. ORACL-05717US0);

U.S. patent application entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR USING VIRTUALMACHINE FABRIC PROFILES TO REDUCE VIRTUAL MACHINE DOWNTIME DURINGMIGRATION IN A HIGH-PERFORMANCE COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT”, application Ser.No. ______, filed ______, 2017 (Attorney Docket No. ORACL-05718US0);

U.S. patent application entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR INITIATING AFORCED MIGRATION OF A VIRTUAL MACHINE IN A HIGH-PERFORMANCE COMPUTINGENVIRONMENT”, application Ser. No. ______, filed ______, 2017 (AttorneyDocket No. ORACL-05720US0).

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains materialwhich is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has noobjection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent documentor the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and TrademarkOffice patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyrightrights whatsoever.

FIELD OF INVENTION

The present invention is generally related to computer systems, and isparticularly related to segregating proprietary subnet managementtraffic to a specific queue pair number.

BACKGROUND

As larger cloud computing architectures are introduced, the performanceand administrative bottlenecks associated with the traditional networkand storage have become a significant problem. There has been anincreased interest in using high performance lossless interconnects suchas InfiniBand™ (IB) technology as the foundation for a cloud computingfabric. This is the general area that embodiments of the invention areintended to address.

SUMMARY

Described herein are systems and methods of reserving a specific queuepair number for proprietary management traffic in a subnet of a highperformance computing environment. An exemplary embodiment can provide ahost channel adapter (HCA), including a control circuit with a processorand a memory, and at least one port operative to connect the HCA to anetwork fabric. Additionally, the HCA can include a subnet managementagent (SMA) that executes on the HCA, and a configurable attributestored in the memory of the HCA. A communication including a numbervalue, can be received by the subnet management agent from a subnetmanager of the subnet. The value of the configurable attribute can beset equal to the value of the received number. A QP number thatcorresponds to the set number value of the configurable attribute canthen be reserved for sending and receiving proprietary networkmanagement traffic.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

FIG. 1 shows an illustration of an InfiniBand™ environment, inaccordance with an embodiment.

FIG. 2 shows an illustration of a partitioned cluster environment, inaccordance with an embodiment

FIG. 3 shows an illustration of a tree topology in a networkenvironment, in accordance with an embodiment.

FIG. 4 shows an exemplary shared port architecture, in accordance withan embodiment.

FIG. 5 shows an exemplary vSwitch architecture, in accordance with anembodiment.

FIG. 6 shows an exemplary vPort architecture, in accordance with anembodiment.

FIG. 7 shows an exemplary vSwitch architecture with prepopulated LIDs,in accordance with an embodiment.

FIG. 8 shows an exemplary vSwitch architecture with dynamic LIDassignment, in accordance with an embodiment.

FIG. 9 shows an exemplary vSwitch architecture with vSwitch with dynamicLID assignment and prepopulated LIDs, in accordance with an embodiment.

FIG. 10 shows an exemplary multi-subnet InfiniBand™ fabric, inaccordance with an embodiment.

FIG. 11 shows an exemplary InfiniBand™ fabric and subnet includingexemplary physical and logical subnet resources, in accordance with anembodiment.

FIG. 12 an exemplary InfiniBand™ fabric and subnet including exemplarysubnet resources as members of different admin partitions, in accordancewith an embodiment.

FIG. 13 shows an exemplary InfiniBand™ fabric and subnet includingexemplary subnet resources as members of a hierarchical managementscheme, including both admin partitions and resource domains, inaccordance with an embodiment.

FIG. 14 is a flowchart for a method for assigning mutual access rightsto members and associated resources of an admin partition associatedwith a fabric-level resource domain, in accordance with an embodiment.

FIG. 15 shows an exemplary database structure for storing VM fabricprofile information, in accordance with an embodiment.

FIG. 16 is a flow chart for making a VM fabric profile available tosubnet resources, in accordance with an embodiment.

FIG. 17 shows an exemplary HCA including the control API, in accordancewith an embodiment.

FIG. 18 shows an exemplary HCA including a configurable VIMM_QPnattribute, in accordance with an embodiment.

FIG. 19 is a flow chart for reserving specific QP number for proprietarymanagement communications, in accordance with an embodiment.

FIG. 20 is a flow chart for reserving a specific queue pair (QP) numberfor proprietary management traffic in a subnet of a network fabric, inaccordance with an embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The invention is illustrated, by way of example and not by way oflimitation, in the figures of the accompanying drawings in which likereferences indicate similar elements. It should be noted that referencesto “an” or “one” or “some” embodiment(s) in this disclosure are notnecessarily to the same embodiment, and such references mean at leastone. While specific implementations are discussed, it is understood thatthe specific implementations are provided for illustrative purposesonly. A person skilled in the relevant art will recognize that othercomponents and configurations may be used without departing from thescope and spirit of the invention.

Common reference numerals can be used to indicate like elementsthroughout the drawings and detailed description; therefore, referencenumerals used in a figure may or may not be referenced in the detaileddescription specific to such figure if the element is describedelsewhere.

Described herein are systems and methods of reserving a specific queuepair number for proprietary management traffic in a subnet of a highperformance computing environment.

The following description of the invention uses an InfiniBand™ (IB)network as an example for a high performance network. Throughout thefollowing description, reference can be made to the InfiniBand™specification (also referred to variously as the InfiniBandspecification, IB specification, or the legacy IB specification). Suchreference is understood to refer to the InfiniBand® Trade AssociationArchitecture Specification, Volume 1, Version 1.3, released March, 2015,available at http://www.inifinibandta.org, which is herein incorporatedby reference in its entirety. It will be apparent to those skilled inthe art that other types of high performance networks can be usedwithout limitation. The following description also uses the fat-treetopology as an example for a fabric topology. It will be apparent tothose skilled in the art that other types of fabric topologies can beused without limitation.

InfiniBand™

InfiniBand™ (IB) is an open standard lossless network technologydeveloped by the InfiniBand™ Trade Association. The technology is basedon a serial point-to-point full-duplex interconnect that offers highthroughput and low latency communication, geared particularly towardshigh-performance computing (HPC) applications and datacenters.

The InfiniBand™ Architecture (IBA) supports a two-layer topologicaldivision. At the lower layer, IB networks are referred to as subnets,where a subnet can include a set of hosts interconnected using switchesand point-to-point links. At the higher level, an IB fabric constitutesone or more subnets, which can be interconnected using routers.

Within a subnet, hosts can be connected using switches andpoint-to-point links. Additionally, there can be a master managemententity, the subnet manager (SM), which resides on a designated device inthe subnet. The subnet manager is responsible for configuring,activating and maintaining the IB subnet. Additionally, the subnetmanager (SM) can be responsible for performing routing tablecalculations in an IB fabric. Here, for example, the routing of the IBnetwork aims at proper load balancing between all source and destinationpairs in the local subnet.

Through the subnet management interface, the subnet manager exchangescontrol packets, which are referred to as subnet management packets(SMPs), with subnet management agents (SMAs). The subnet managementagents reside on every IB subnet device. By using SMPs, the subnetmanager is able to discover the fabric, configure end-nodes andswitches, and receive notifications from SMAs.

In accordance with an embodiment, intra-subnet routing in an IB networkcan be based on linear forwarding tables (LFTs) stored in the switches.The LFTs are calculated by the SM according to the routing mechanism inuse. In a subnet, Host Channel Adapter (HCA) ports on the end nodes andswitches are addressed using local identifiers (LIDs). Each entry in alinear forwarding table (LFT) consists of a destination LID (DLID) andan output port. Only one entry per LID in the table is supported. When apacket arrives at a switch, its output port is determined by looking upthe DLID in the forwarding table of the switch. The routing isdeterministic as packets take the same path in the network between agiven source-destination pair (LID pair).

Generally, all other subnet managers, excepting the master subnetmanager, act in standby mode for fault-tolerance. In a situation where amaster subnet manager fails, however, a new master subnet manager isnegotiated by the standby subnet managers. The master subnet manageralso performs periodic sweeps of the subnet to detect any topologychanges and reconfigures the network accordingly.

Furthermore, hosts and switches within a subnet can be addressed usinglocal identifiers (LIDs), and a single subnet can be limited to 49151unicast LIDs. Besides the LIDs, which are the local addresses that arevalid within a subnet, each IB device can have a 64-bit global uniqueidentifier (GUID). A GUID can be used to form a global identifier (GID),which is an IB layer three (L3) address.

The SM can calculate routing tables (i.e., the connections/routesbetween each pair of nodes within the subnet) at network initializationtime. Furthermore, the routing tables can be updated whenever thetopology changes, in order to ensure connectivity and optimalperformance. During normal operations, the SM can perform periodic lightsweeps of the network to check for topology changes. If a change isdiscovered during a light sweep or if a message (trap) signaling anetwork change is received by the SM, the SM can reconfigure the networkaccording to the discovered changes.

For example, the SM can reconfigure the network when the networktopology changes, such as when a link goes down, when a device is added,or when a link is removed. The reconfiguration steps can include thesteps performed during the network initialization. Furthermore, thereconfigurations can have a local scope that is limited to the subnetsin which the network changes occurred. Also, the segmenting of a largefabric with routers may limit the reconfiguration scope.

An example InfiniBand™ fabric is shown in FIG. 1, which shows anillustration of an InfiniBand™ environment 100, in accordance with anembodiment. In the example shown in FIG. 1, nodes A-E, 101-105, use theInfiniBand™ fabric 120 to communicate, via the respective host channeladapters 111-115. In accordance with an embodiment, the various nodes,e.g., nodes A-E 101-105, can be represented by various physical devices.In accordance with an embodiment, the various nodes, e.g., nodes A-E101-105, can be represented by various virtual devices, such as virtualmachines.

Data Partitions in InfiniBand™

In accordance with an embodiment, IB networks can support partitioningas a security mechanism to provide for isolation of logical groups ofsystems sharing a network fabric. Each HCA port on a node in the fabriccan be a member of one or more partitions. In accordance with anembodiment, the present disclosure provides for two types of partitionsthat can be defined within an IB subnet—data partitions (discussed indetail in the following paragraphs) and admin partitions (discussed indetail later in the disclosure).

Data partition memberships are managed by a centralized partitionmanager, which can be part of the SM. The SM can configure datapartition membership information on each port as a table of 16-bitpartition keys (P_Keys). The SM can also configure switch and routerports with the data partition enforcement tables containing P_Keyinformation associated with the end-nodes that send or receive datatraffic through these ports. Additionally, in a general case, datapartition membership of a switch port can represent a union of allmembership indirectly associated with LIDs routed via the port in anegress (towards the link) direction.

In accordance with an embodiment, data partitions are logical groups ofports such that the members of a group can only communicate to othermembers of the same logical group. At host channel adapters (HCAs) andswitches, packets can be filtered using the data partition membershipinformation to enforce isolation. Packets with invalid partitioninginformation can be dropped as soon as the packets reaches an incomingport. In partitioned IB systems, data partitions can be used to createtenant clusters. With data partition enforcement in place, a node cannotcommunicate with other nodes that belong to a different tenant cluster.In this way, the security of the system can be guaranteed even in thepresence of compromised or malicious tenant nodes.

In accordance with an embodiment, for the communication between nodes,Queue Pairs (QPs) and End-to-End contexts (EECs) can be assigned to aparticular data partition, except for the management Queue Pairs (QP0and QP1). The P_Key information can then be added to every IB transportpacket sent. When a packet arrives at an HCA port or a switch, its P_Keyvalue can be validated against a table configured by the SM. If aninvalid P_Key value is found, the packet is discarded immediately. Inthis way, communication is allowed only between ports sharing a datapartition.

An example of IB data partitions is shown in FIG. 2, which shows anillustration of a data partitioned cluster environment, in accordancewith an embodiment. In the example shown in FIG. 2, nodes A-E, 101-105,use the InfiniBand™ fabric, 120, to communicate, via the respective hostchannel adapters 111-115. The nodes A-E are arranged into datapartitions, namely data partition 1, 130, data partition 2, 140, anddata partition 3, 150. Data partition 1 comprises node A 101 and node D104. Data partition 2 comprises node A 101, node B 102, and node C 103.Data partition 3 comprises node C 103 and node E 105. Because of thearrangement of the data partitions, node D 104 and node E 105 are notallowed to communicate as these nodes do not share a data partition.Meanwhile, for example, node A 101 and node C 103 are allowed tocommunicate as these nodes are both members of data partition 2, 140.

Virtual Machines in InfiniBand™

During the last decade, the prospect of virtualized High PerformanceComputing (HPC) environments has improved considerably as CPU overheadhas been practically removed through hardware virtualization support;memory overhead has been significantly reduced by virtualizing theMemory Management Unit; storage overhead has been reduced by the use offast SAN storages or distributed networked file systems; and network I/Ooverhead has been reduced by the use of device passthrough techniqueslike Single Root Input/Output Virtualization (SR-IOV). It is nowpossible for clouds to accommodate virtual HPC (vHPC) clusters usinghigh performance interconnect solutions and deliver the necessaryperformance.

However, when coupled with lossless networks, such as InfiniBand™ (IB),certain cloud functionality, such as live migration of virtual machines(VMs), still remains an issue due to the complicated addressing androuting schemes used in these solutions. IB is an interconnectionnetwork technology offering high bandwidth and low latency, thus, isvery well suited for HPC and other communication intensive workloads.

The traditional approach for connecting IB devices to VMs is byutilizing SR-IOV with direct assignment. However, achieving livemigration of VMs assigned with IB Host Channel Adapters (HCAs) usingSR-IOV has proved to be challenging. Each IB connected node has threedifferent addresses: LID, GUID, and GID. When a live migration happens,one or more of these addresses change. Other nodes communicating withthe VM-in-migration can lose connectivity. When this happens, the lostconnection can be attempted to be renewed by locating the virtualmachine's new address to reconnect to by sending Subnet Administration(SA) path record queries to the IB Subnet Manager (SM).

IB uses three different types of addresses. A first type of address isthe 16 bits Local Identifier (LID). At least one unique LID is assignedto each HCA port and each switch by the SM. The LIDs are used to routetraffic within a subnet. Since the LID is 16 bits long, 65536 uniqueaddress combinations can be made, of which only 49151 (0x0001-0xBFFF)can be used as unicast addresses. Consequently, the number of availableunicast addresses defines the maximum size of an IB subnet. A secondtype of address is the 64 bits Global Unique Identifier (GUID) assignedby the manufacturer to each device (e.g. HCAs and switches) and each HCAport. The SM may assign additional subnet unique GUIDs to an HCA port,which is useful when SR-IOV is used. A third type of address is the 128bits Global Identifier (GID). The GID is a valid IPv6 unicast address,and at least one is assigned to each HCA port. The GID is formed bycombining a globally unique 64 bits prefix assigned by the fabricadministrator, and the GUID address of each HCA port.

Fat-Tree (FTree) Topologies and Routing

In accordance with an embodiment, some of the IB based HPC systemsemploy a fat-tree topology to take advantage of the useful propertiesfat-trees offer. These properties include full bisection-bandwidth andinherent fault-tolerance due to the availability of multiple pathsbetween each source destination pair. The initial idea behind fat-treeswas to employ fatter links between nodes, with more available bandwidth,as the tree moves towards the roots of the topology. The fatter linkscan help to avoid congestion in the upper-level switches and thebisection-bandwidth is maintained.

FIG. 3 shows an illustration of a tree topology in a networkenvironment, in accordance with an embodiment. As shown in FIG. 3, oneor more end-nodes 201-204 can be connected in a network fabric 200. Thenetwork fabric 200 can be based on a fat-tree topology, which includes aplurality of leaf switches 211-214, and multiple spine switches or rootswitches 231-234. Additionally, the network fabric 200 can include oneor more intermediate switches, such as switches 221-224.

Also as shown in FIG. 3, each of the end-nodes 201-204 can be amulti-homed node, i.e., a single node that is connected to two or moreparts of the network fabric 200 through multiple ports. For example, thenode 201 can include the ports H1 and H2, the node 202 can include theports H3 and H4, the node 203 can include the ports H5 and H6, and thenode 204 can include the ports H7 and H8.

Additionally, each switch can have multiple switch ports. For example,the root switch 231 can have the switch ports 1-2, the root switch 232can have the switch ports 3-4, the root switch 233 can have the switchports 5-6, and the root switch 234 can have the switch ports 7-8.

In accordance with an embodiment, the fat-tree routing mechanism is oneof the most popular routing algorithm for IB based fat-tree topologies.The fat-tree routing mechanism is also implemented in the OFED (OpenFabric Enterprise Distribution—a standard software stack for buildingand deploying IB based applications) subnet manager, OpenSM.

The fat-tree routing mechanism aims to generate LFTs that evenly spreadshortest-path routes across the links in the network fabric. Themechanism traverses the fabric in the indexing order and assigns targetLIDs of the end-nodes, and thus the corresponding routes, to each switchport. For the end-nodes connected to the same leaf switch, the indexingorder can depend on the switch port to which the end-node is connected(i.e., port numbering sequence). For each port, the mechanism canmaintain a port usage counter, and can use this port usage counter toselect a least-used port each time a new route is added.

In accordance with an embodiment, in a partitioned subnet, nodes thatare not members of a common data partition are not allowed tocommunicate. Practically, this means that some of the routes assigned bythe fat-tree routing algorithm are not used for the user traffic. Theproblem arises when the fat tree routing mechanism generates LFTs forthose routes the same way it does for the other functional paths. Thisbehavior can result in degraded balancing on the links, as nodes arerouted in the order of indexing. As routing can be performed obliviousto the data partitions, fat-tree routed subnets, in general, providepoor isolation among data partitions.

In accordance with an embodiment, a Fat-Tree is a hierarchical networktopology that can scale with the available network resources. Moreover,Fat-Trees are easy to build using commodity switches placed on differentlevels of the hierarchy. Different variations of Fat-Trees are commonlyavailable, including k-ary-n-trees, Extended Generalized Fat-Trees(XGFTs), Parallel Ports Generalized Fat-Trees (PGFTs) and Real LifeFat-Trees (RLFTs).

A k-ary-n-tree is an n level Fat-Tree with k^(n) end-nodes and n·k^(n-1)switches, each with 2k ports. Each switch has an equal number of up anddown connections in the tree. XGFT Fat-Tree extends k-ary-n-trees byallowing both different number of up and down connections for theswitches, and different number of connections at each level in the tree.The PGFT definition further broadens the XGFT topologies and permitsmultiple connections between switches. A large variety of topologies canbe defined using XGFTs and PGFTs. However, for practical purposes, RLFT,which is a restricted version of PGFT, is introduced to define Fat-Treescommonly found in today's HPC clusters. An RLFT uses the same port-countswitches at all levels in the Fat-Tree.

Input/Output (I/O) Virtualization

In accordance with an embodiment, I/O Virtualization (IOV) can provideavailability of I/O by allowing virtual machines (VMs) to access theunderlying physical resources. The combination of storage traffic andinter-server communication impose an increased load that may overwhelmthe I/O resources of a single server, leading to backlogs and idleprocessors as they are waiting for data. With the increase in number ofI/O requests, IOV can provide availability; and can improve performance,scalability and flexibility of the (virtualized) I/O resources to matchthe level of performance seen in modern CPU virtualization.

In accordance with an embodiment, IOV is desired as it can allow sharingof I/O resources and provide protected access to the resources from theVMs. IOV decouples a logical device, which is exposed to a VM, from itsphysical implementation. Currently, there can be different types of IOVtechnologies, such as emulation, paravirtualization, direct assignment(DA), and single root-I/O virtualization (SR-IOV).

In accordance with an embodiment, one type of IOV technology is softwareemulation. Software emulation can allow for a decoupledfront-end/back-end software architecture. The front-end can be a devicedriver placed in the VM, communicating with the back-end implemented bya hypervisor to provide I/O access. The physical device sharing ratio ishigh and live migrations of VMs are possible with just a fewmilliseconds of network downtime. However, software emulation introducesadditional, undesired computational overhead.

In accordance with an embodiment, another type of IOV technology isdirect device assignment. Direct device assignment involves a couplingof I/O devices to VMs, with no device sharing between VMs. Directassignment, or device passthrough, provides near to native performancewith minimum overhead. The physical device bypasses the hypervisor andis directly attached to the VM. However, a downside of such directdevice assignment is limited scalability, as there is no sharing amongvirtual machines—one physical network card is coupled with one VM.

In accordance with an embodiment, Single Root IOV (SR-IOV) can allow aphysical device to appear through hardware virtualization as multipleindependent lightweight instances of the same device. These instancescan be assigned to VMs as passthrough devices, and accessed as VirtualFunctions (VFs). The hypervisor accesses the device through a unique(per device), fully featured Physical Function (PF). SR-IOV eases thescalability issue of pure direct assignment. However, a problempresented by SR-IOV is that it can impair VM migration. Among these IOVtechnologies, SR-IOV can extend the PCI Express (PCIe) specificationwith the means to allow direct access to a single physical device frommultiple VMs while maintaining near to native performance. Thus, SR-IOVcan provide good performance and scalability.

SR-IOV allows a PCIe device to expose multiple virtual devices that canbe shared between multiple guests by allocating one virtual device toeach guest. Each SR-IOV device has at least one physical function (PF)and one or more associated virtual functions (VF). A PF is a normal PCIefunction controlled by the virtual machine monitor (VMM), or hypervisor,whereas a VF is a light-weight PCIe function. Each VF has its own baseaddress (BAR) and is assigned with a unique requester ID that enablesI/O memory management unit (IOMMU) to differentiate between the trafficstreams to/from different VFs. The IOMMU also apply memory and interrupttranslations between the PF and the VFs.

Unfortunately, however, direct device assignment techniques pose abarrier for cloud providers in situations where transparent livemigration of virtual machines is desired for data center optimization.The essence of live migration is that the memory contents of a VM arecopied to a remote hypervisor. Then the VM is paused at the sourcehypervisor, and the VM's operation is resumed at the destination. Whenusing software emulation methods, the network interfaces are virtual sotheir internal states are stored into the memory and get copied as well.Thus the downtime could be brought down to a few milliseconds.

However, migration becomes more difficult when direct device assignmenttechniques, such as SR-IOV, are used. In such situations, a completeinternal state of the network interface cannot be copied as it is tiedto the hardware. The SR-IOV VFs assigned to a VM are instead detached,the live migration will run, and a new VF will be attached at thedestination. In the case of InfiniBand™ and SR-IOV, this process canintroduce downtime in the order of seconds. Moreover, in an SR-IOVshared port model the addresses of the VM will change after themigration, causing additional overhead in the SM and a negative impacton the performance of the underlying network fabric.

InfiniBand™ SR-IOV Architecture—Shared Port

There can be different types of SR-IOV models, e.g. a shared port model,a virtual switch model, and a virtual port model.

FIG. 4 shows an exemplary shared port architecture, in accordance withan embodiment. As depicted in the figure, a host 300 (e.g., a hostchannel adapter) can interact with a hypervisor 310, which can assignthe various virtual functions 330, 340, 350, to a number of virtualmachines. As well, the physical function can be handled by thehypervisor 310.

In accordance with an embodiment, when using a shared port architecture,such as that depicted in FIG. 4, the host, e.g., HCA, appears as asingle port in the network with a single shared LID and shared QueuePair (QP) space between the physical function 320 and the virtualfunctions 330, 350, 350. However, each function (i.e., physical functionand virtual functions) can have their own GID.

As shown in FIG. 4, in accordance with an embodiment, different GIDs canbe assigned to the virtual functions and the physical function, and thespecial queue pairs, QP0 and QP1 (i.e., special purpose queue pairs thatare used for InfiniBand™ management packets), are owned by the physicalfunction. These QPs are exposed to the VFs as well, but the VFs are notallowed to use QP0 (all SMPs coming from VFs towards QP0 are discarded),and QP1 can act as a proxy of the actual QP1 owned by the PF.

In accordance with an embodiment, the shared port architecture can allowfor highly scalable data centers that are not limited by the number ofVMs (which attach to the network by being assigned to the virtualfunctions), as the LID space is only consumed by physical machines andswitches in the network.

However, a shortcoming of the shared port architecture is the inabilityto provide transparent live migration, hindering the potential forflexible VM placement. As each LID is associated with a specifichypervisor, and shared among all VMs residing on the hypervisor, amigrating VM (i.e., a virtual machine migrating to a destinationhypervisor) has to have its LID changed to the LID of the destinationhypervisor. Furthermore, as a consequence of the restricted QP0 access,a subnet manager cannot run inside a VM.

InfiniBand™ SR-IOV Architecture Models—Virtual Switch (vSwitch)

FIG. 5 shows an exemplary vSwitch architecture, in accordance with anembodiment. As depicted in the figure, a host 400 (e.g., a host channeladapter) can interact with a hypervisor 410, which can assign thevarious virtual functions 430, 440, 450, to a number of virtualmachines. As well, the physical function can be handled by thehypervisor 410. A virtual switch 415 can also be handled by thehypervisor 401.

In accordance with an embodiment, in a vSwitch architecture each virtualfunction 430, 440, 450 is a complete virtual Host Channel Adapter(vHCA), meaning that the VM assigned to a VF is assigned a complete setof IB addresses (e.g., GID, GUID, LID) and a dedicated QP space in thehardware. For the rest of the network and the SM, the HCA 400 looks likea switch, via the virtual switch 415, with additional nodes connected toit. The hypervisor 410 can use the PF 420, and the VMs (attached to thevirtual functions) use the VFs.

In accordance with an embodiment, a vSwitch architecture providetransparent virtualization. However, because each virtual function isassigned a unique LID, the number of available LIDs gets consumedrapidly. As well, with many LID addresses in use (i.e., one each foreach physical function and each virtual function), more communicationpaths have to be computed by the SM and more Subnet Management Packets(SMPs) have to be sent to the switches in order to update their LFTs.For example, the computation of the communication paths might takeseveral minutes in large networks. Because LID space is limited to 49151unicast LIDs, and as each VM (via a VF), physical node, and switchoccupies one LID each, the number of physical nodes and switches in thenetwork limits the number of active VMs, and vice versa.

InfiniBand™ SR-IOV Architecture Models—Virtual Port (vPort)

FIG. 6 shows an exemplary vPort concept, in accordance with anembodiment. As depicted in the figure, a host 300 (e.g., a host channeladapter) can interact with a hypervisor 410, which can assign thevarious virtual functions 330, 340, 350, to a number of virtualmachines. As well, the physical function can be handled by thehypervisor 310.

In accordance with an embodiment, the vPort concept is loosely definedin order to give freedom of implementation to vendors (e.g. thedefinition does not rule that the implementation has to be SR-IOVspecific), and a goal of the vPort is to standardize the way VMs arehandled in subnets. With the vPort concept, both SR-IOV Shared-Port-likeand vSwitch-like architectures or a combination of both, that can bemore scalable in both the space and performance domains, can be defined.A vPort supports optional LIDs, and unlike the Shared-Port, the SM isaware of all the vPorts available in a subnet even if a vPort is notusing a dedicated LID.

InfiniBand™ SR-IOV Architecture Models—vSwitch with Prepopulated LIDs

In accordance with an embodiment, the present disclosure provides asystem and method for providing a vSwitch architecture with prepopulatedLIDs.

FIG. 7 shows an exemplary vSwitch architecture with prepopulated LIDs,in accordance with an embodiment. As depicted in the figure, a number ofswitches 501-504 can provide communication within the network switchedenvironment 600 (e.g., an IB subnet) between members of a fabric, suchas an InfiniBand™ fabric. The fabric can include a number of hardwaredevices, such as host channel adapters 510, 520, 530. Each of the hostchannel adapters 510, 520, 530, can in turn interact with a hypervisor511, 521, and 531, respectively. Each hypervisor can, in turn, inconjunction with the host channel adapter it interacts with, setup andassign a number of virtual functions 514, 515, 516, 524, 525, 526, 534,535, 536, to a number of virtual machines. For example, virtual machine1 550 can be assigned by the hypervisor 511 to virtual function 1 514.Hypervisor 511 can additionally assign virtual machine 2 551 to virtualfunction 2 515, and virtual machine 3 552 to virtual function 3 516.Hypervisor 531 can, in turn, assign virtual machine 4 553 to virtualfunction 1 534. The hypervisors can access the host channel adaptersthrough a fully featured physical function 513, 523, 533, on each of thehost channel adapters.

In accordance with an embodiment, each of the switches 501-504 cancomprise a number of ports (not shown), which are used in setting alinear forwarding table (LFT) in order to direct traffic within thenetwork switched environment 600.

In accordance with an embodiment, the virtual switches 512, 522, and532, can be handled by their respective hypervisors 511, 521, 531. Insuch a vSwitch architecture each virtual function is a complete virtualHost Channel Adapter (vHCA), meaning that the VM assigned to a VF isassigned a complete set of IB addresses (e.g., GID, GUID, LID) and adedicated QP space in the hardware. For the rest of the network and theSM (not shown), the HCAs 510, 520, and 530 look like a switch, via thevirtual switches, with additional nodes connected to them.

In accordance with an embodiment, the present disclosure provides asystem and method for providing a vSwitch architecture with prepopulatedLIDs. Referring to FIG. 7, the LIDs are prepopulated to the variousphysical functions 513, 523, 533, as well as the virtual functions514-516, 524-526, 534-536 (even those virtual functions not currentlyassociated with an active virtual machine). For example, physicalfunction 513 is prepopulated with LID 1, while virtual function 1 534 isprepopulated with LID 10. The LIDs are prepopulated in an SR-IOVvSwitch-enabled subnet when the network is booted. Even when not all ofthe VFs are occupied by VMs in the network, the populated VFs areassigned with a LID as shown in FIG. 7.

In accordance with an embodiment, much like physical host channeladapters can have more than one port (two ports are common forredundancy), virtual HCAs can also be represented with two ports and beconnected via one, two or more virtual switches to the external IBsubnet.

In accordance with an embodiment, in a vSwitch architecture withprepopulated LIDs, each hypervisor can consume one LID for itselfthrough the PF and one more LID for each additional VF. The sum of allthe VFs available in all hypervisors in an IB subnet, gives the maximumamount of VMs that are allowed to run in the subnet. For example, in anIB subnet with 16 virtual functions per hypervisor in the subnet, theneach hypervisor consumes 17 LIDs (one LID for each of the 16 virtualfunctions plus one LID for the physical function) in the subnet. In suchan IB subnet, the theoretical hypervisor limit for a single subnet isruled by the number of available unicast LIDs and is: 2891 (49151available LIDs divided by 17 LIDs per hypervisor), and the total numberof VMs (i.e., the limit) is 46256 (2891 hypervisors times 16 VFs perhypervisor). (In actuality, these numbers are smaller since each switch,router, or dedicated SM node in the IB subnet consumes a LID as well).Note that the vSwitch does not need to occupy an additional LID as itcan share the LID with the PF.

In accordance with an embodiment, in a vSwitch architecture withprepopulated LIDs, communication paths are computed for all the LIDs thefirst time the network is booted. When a new VM needs to be started thesystem does not have to add a new LID in the subnet, an action thatwould otherwise cause a complete reconfiguration of the network,including path recalculation, which is the most time consuming part.Instead, an available port for a VM is located (i.e., an availablevirtual function) in one of the hypervisors and the virtual machine isattached to the available virtual function.

In accordance with an embodiment, a vSwitch architecture withprepopulated LIDs also allows for the ability to calculate and usedifferent paths to reach different VMs hosted by the same hypervisor.Essentially, this allows for such subnets and networks to use a LID MaskControl (LMC) like feature to provide alternative paths towards onephysical machine, without being bound by the limitation of the LMC thatrequires the LIDs to be sequential. The freedom to use non-sequentialLIDs is particularly useful when a VM needs to be migrated and carry itsassociated LID to the destination.

In accordance with an embodiment, along with the benefits shown above ofa vSwitch architecture with prepopulated LIDs, certain considerationscan be taken into account. For example, because the LIDs areprepopulated in an SR-IOV vSwitch-enabled subnet when the network isbooted, the initial path computation (e.g., on boot-up) can take longerthan if the LIDs were not pre-populated.

InfiniBand™ SR-IOV Architecture Models—vSwitch with Dynamic LIDAssignment

In accordance with an embodiment, the present disclosure provides asystem and method for providing a vSwitch architecture with dynamic LIDassignment.

FIG. 8 shows an exemplary vSwitch architecture with dynamic LIDassignment, in accordance with an embodiment. As depicted in the figure,a number of switches 501-504 can provide communication within thenetwork switched environment 700 (e.g., an IB subnet) between members ofa fabric, such as an InfiniBand™ fabric. The fabric can include a numberof hardware devices, such as host channel adapters 510, 520, 530. Eachof the host channel adapters 510, 520, 530, can in turn interact with ahypervisor 511, 521, 531, respectively. Each hypervisor can, in turn, inconjunction with the host channel adapter it interacts with, setup andassign a number of virtual functions 514, 515, 516, 524, 525, 526, 534,535, 536, to a number of virtual machines. For example, virtual machine1 550 can be assigned by the hypervisor 511 to virtual function 1 514.Hypervisor 511 can additionally assign virtual machine 2 551 to virtualfunction 2 515, and virtual machine 3 552 to virtual function 3 516.Hypervisor 531 can, in turn, assign virtual machine 4 553 to virtualfunction 1 534. The hypervisors can access the host channel adaptersthrough a fully featured physical function 513, 523, 533, on each of thehost channel adapters.

In accordance with an embodiment, each of the switches 501-504 cancomprise a number of ports (not shown), which are used in setting alinear forwarding table in order to direct traffic within the networkswitched environment 700.

In accordance with an embodiment, the virtual switches 512, 522, and532, can be handled by their respective hypervisors 511, 521, 531. Insuch a vSwitch architecture each virtual function is a complete virtualHost Channel Adapter (vHCA), meaning that the VM assigned to a VF isassigned a complete set of IB addresses (e.g., GID, GUID, LID) and adedicated QP space in the hardware. For the rest of the network and theSM (not shown), the HCAs 510, 520, and 530 look like a switch, via thevirtual switches, with additional nodes connected to them.

In accordance with an embodiment, the present disclosure provides asystem and method for providing a vSwitch architecture with dynamic LIDassignment. Referring to FIG. 8, the LIDs are dynamically assigned tothe various physical functions 513, 523, 533, with physical function 513receiving LID 1, physical function 523 receiving LID 2, and physicalfunction 533 receiving LID 3. Those virtual functions that areassociated with an active virtual machine can also receive a dynamicallyassigned LID. For example, because virtual machine 1 550 is active andassociated with virtual function 1 514, virtual function 514 can beassigned LID 5. Likewise, virtual function 2 515, virtual function 3516, and virtual function 1 534 are each associated with an activevirtual function. Because of this, these virtual functions are assignedLIDs, with LID 7 being assigned to virtual function 2 515, LID 11 beingassigned to virtual function 3 516, and LID 9 being assigned to virtualfunction 1 534. Unlike vSwitch with prepopulated LIDs, those virtualfunctions not currently associated with an active virtual machine do notreceive a LID assignment.

In accordance with an embodiment, with the dynamic LID assignment, theinitial path computation can be substantially reduced. When the networkis booting for the first time and no VMs are present then a relativelysmall number of LIDs can be used for the initial path calculation andLFT distribution.

In accordance with an embodiment, much like physical host channeladapters can have more than one port (two ports are common forredundancy), virtual HCAs can also be represented with two ports and beconnected via one, two or more virtual switches to the external IBsubnet.

In accordance with an embodiment, when a new VM is created in a systemutilizing vSwitch with dynamic LID assignment, a free VM slot is foundin order to decide on which hypervisor to boot the newly added VM, and aunique non-used unicast LID is found as well. However, there are noknown paths in the network and the LFTs of the switches for handling thenewly added LID. Computing a new set of paths in order to handle thenewly added VM is not desirable in a dynamic environment where severalVMs may be booted every minute. In large IB subnets, computing a new setof routes can take several minutes, and this procedure would have torepeat each time a new VM is booted.

Advantageously, in accordance with an embodiment, because all the VFs ina hypervisor share the same uplink with the PF, there is no need tocompute a new set of routes. It is only needed to iterate through theLFTs of all the physical switches in the network, copy the forwardingport from the LID entry that belongs to the PF of the hypervisor—wherethe VM is created—to the newly added LID, and send a single SMP toupdate the corresponding LFT block of the particular switch. Thus thesystem and method avoids the need to compute a new set of routes.

In accordance with an embodiment, the LIDs assigned in the vSwitch withdynamic LID assignment architecture do not have to be sequential. Whencomparing the LIDs assigned on VMs on each hypervisor in vSwitch withprepopulated LIDs versus vSwitch with dynamic LID assignment, it isnotable that the LIDs assigned in the dynamic LID assignmentarchitecture are non-sequential, while those prepopulated are sequentialin nature. In the vSwitch dynamic LID assignment architecture, when anew VM is created, the next available LID is used throughout thelifetime of the VM. Conversely, in a vSwitch with prepopulated LIDs,each VM inherits the LID that is already assigned to the correspondingVF, and in a network without live migrations, VMs consecutively attachedto a given VF get the same LID.

In accordance with an embodiment, the vSwitch with dynamic LIDassignment architecture can resolve the drawbacks of the vSwitch withprepopulated LIDs architecture model at a cost of some additionalnetwork and runtime SM overhead. Each time a VM is created, the LFTs ofthe physical switches in the subnet are updated with the newly added LIDassociated with the created VM. One subnet management packet (SMP) perswitch is needed to be sent for this operation. The LMC-likefunctionality is also not available, because each VM is using the samepath as its host hypervisor. However, there is no limitation on thetotal amount of VFs present in all hypervisors, and the number of VFsmay exceed that of the unicast LID limit. Of course, not all of the VFsare allowed to be attached on active VMs simultaneously if this is thecase, but having more spare hypervisors and VFs adds flexibility fordisaster recovery and optimization of fragmented networks when operatingclose to the unicast LID limit.

InfiniBand™ SR-IOV Architecture Models—vSwitch with Dynamic LIDAssignment and Prepopulated LIDs

FIG. 9 shows an exemplary vSwitch architecture with vSwitch with dynamicLID assignment and prepopulated LIDs, in accordance with an embodiment.As depicted in the figure, a number of switches 501-504 can providecommunication within the network switched environment 800 (e.g., an IBsubnet) between members of a fabric, such as an InfiniBand™ fabric. Thefabric can include a number of hardware devices, such as host channeladapters 510, 520, 530. Each of the host channel adapters 510, 520, 530,can in turn interact with a hypervisor 511, 521, and 531, respectively.Each hypervisor can, in turn, in conjunction with the host channeladapter it interacts with, setup and assign a number of virtualfunctions 514, 515, 516, 524, 525, 526, 534, 535, 536, to a number ofvirtual machines. For example, virtual machine 1 550 can be assigned bythe hypervisor 511 to virtual function 1 514. Hypervisor 511 canadditionally assign virtual machine 2 551 to virtual function 2 515.Hypervisor 521 can assign virtual machine 3 552 to virtual function 3526. Hypervisor 531 can, in turn, assign virtual machine 4 553 tovirtual function 2 535. The hypervisors can access the host channeladapters through a fully featured physical function 513, 523, 533, oneach of the host channel adapters.

In accordance with an embodiment, each of the switches 501-504 cancomprise a number of ports (not shown), which are used in setting alinear forwarding table in order to direct traffic within the networkswitched environment 800.

In accordance with an embodiment, the virtual switches 512, 522, and532, can be handled by their respective hypervisors 511, 521, 531. Insuch a vSwitch architecture each virtual function is a complete virtualHost Channel Adapter (vHCA), meaning that the VM assigned to a VF isassigned a complete set of IB addresses (e.g., GID, GUID, LID) and adedicated QP space in the hardware. For the rest of the network and theSM (not shown), the HCAs 510, 520, and 530 look like a switch, via thevirtual switches, with additional nodes connected to them.

In accordance with an embodiment, the present disclosure provides asystem and method for providing a hybrid vSwitch architecture withdynamic LID assignment and prepopulated LIDs. Referring to FIG. 9,hypervisor 511 can be arranged with vSwitch with prepopulated LIDsarchitecture, while hypervisor 521 can be arranged with vSwitch withprepopulated LIDs and dynamic LID assignment. Hypervisor 531 can bearranged with vSwitch with dynamic LID assignment. Thus, the physicalfunction 513 and virtual functions 514-516 have their LIDs prepopulated(i.e., even those virtual functions not attached to an active virtualmachine are assigned a LID). Physical function 523 and virtual function1 524 can have their LIDs prepopulated, while virtual function 2 and 3,525 and 526, have their LIDs dynamically assigned (i.e., virtualfunction 2 525 is available for dynamic LID assignment, and virtualfunction 3 526 has a LID of 11 dynamically assigned as virtual machine 3552 is attached). Finally, the functions (physical function and virtualfunctions) associated with hypervisor 3 531 can have their LIDsdynamically assigned. This results in virtual functions 1 and 3, 534 and536, are available for dynamic LID assignment, while virtual function 2535 has LID of 9 dynamically assigned as virtual machine 4 553 isattached there.

In accordance with an embodiment, such as that depicted in FIG. 9, whereboth vSwitch with prepopulated LIDs and vSwitch with dynamic LIDassignment are utilized (independently or in combination within anygiven hypervisor), the number of prepopulated LIDs per host channeladapter can be defined by a fabric administrator and can be in the rangeof 0<=prepopulated VFs<=Total VFs (per host channel adapter), and theVFs available for dynamic LID assignment can be found by subtracting thenumber of prepopulated VFs from the total number of VFs (per hostchannel adapter).

In accordance with an embodiment, much like physical host channeladapters can have more than one port (two ports are common forredundancy), virtual HCAs can also be represented with two ports and beconnected via one, two or more virtual switches to the external IBsubnet.

InfiniBand™—Inter-Subnet Communication

In accordance with an embodiment, in addition to providing anInfiniBand™ fabric within a single subnet, embodiments of the currentdisclosure can also provide for an InfiniBand™ fabric that spans two ormore subnets.

FIG. 10 shows an exemplary multi-subnet InfiniBand™ fabric, inaccordance with an embodiment. As depicted in the figure, within subnetA 1000, a number of switches 1001-1004 can provide communication withinsubnet A 1000 (e.g., an IB subnet) between members of a fabric, such asan InfiniBand™ fabric. The fabric can include a number of hardwaredevices, such as, for example, channel adapter 1010. Host channeladapters 1010 can in turn interact with a hypervisor 1011. Thehypervisor can, in turn, in conjunction with the host channel adapter itinteracts with, setup a number of virtual functions 1014. The hypervisorcan additionally assign virtual machines to each of the virtualfunctions, such as virtual machine 1 1015 being assigned to virtualfunction 1 1014. The hypervisor can access their associated host channeladapters through a fully featured physical function, such as physicalfunction 1013, on each of the host channel adapters.

With further reference to FIG. 10, and in accordance with an embodiment,a number of switches 1021-1024 can provide communication within subnet B1040 (e.g., an IB subnet) between members of a fabric, such as anInfiniBand™ fabric. The fabric can include a number of hardware devices,such as, for example, host channel adapter 1030. Host channel adapter1030 can in turn interact with a hypervisor 1031. The hypervisor can, inturn, in conjunction with the host channel adapter it interacts with,setup a number of virtual functions 1034. The hypervisors canadditionally assign virtual machines to each of the virtual functions,such as virtual machine 2 1035 being assigned to virtual function 21034. The hypervisor can access their associated host channel adaptersthrough a fully featured physical function, such as physical function1033, on each of the host channel adapters. It is noted that, althoughonly one host channel adapter is shown within each subnet (i.e., subnetA and subnet B), it is to be understood that a plurality of host channeladapters, and their corresponding components, can be included withineach subnet.

In accordance with an embodiment, each of the host channel adapters canadditionally be associated with a virtual switch, such as virtual switch1012 and virtual switch 1032, and each HCA can be set up with adifferent architecture model, as discussed above. Although both subnetswithin FIG. 10 are shown as using a vSwitch with prepopulated LIDarchitecture model, this is not meant to imply that all such subnetconfigurations must follow a similar architecture model.

In accordance with an embodiment, at least one switch within each subnetcan be associated with a router, such as switch 1002 within subnet A1000 being associated with router 1005, and switch 1021 within subnet B1040 being associated with router 1006.

In accordance with an embodiment, when traffic at an originating source,such as virtual machine 1 within subnet A, is addressed to a destinationat a different subnet, such as virtual machine 2 within subnet B, thetraffic can be addressed to the router within subnet A, i.e., router1005, which can then pass the traffic to subnet B via its link withrouter 1006.

Fabric Manager

As discussed above, a network fabric, such as an InfiniBand™ fabric, canspan a plurality of subnets through the use of interconnected routers ineach subnet of the fabric. In accordance with an embodiment, a fabricmanager (not shown) can be implemented on a host which is a member ofthe network fabric and can be employed within the fabric to manage bothphysical and logical resources that are part of the fabric. Forinstance, management tasks such as discovering fabric resources,controlling connectivity between physical servers, collecting andviewing real-time network statistics, disaster recovery, and settingquality of service (QoS) settings, among others, may be performed by auser through the fabric manager. In accordance with an embodiment, thefabric manager may span all subnets defined in the fabric. That is, thefabric manager can manage physical and logical resources that aremembers of, or associated with, the fabric at large, regardless of whichsubnet the resources are a member of.

In accordance with an embodiment, the fabric manager can include agraphical user interface (GUI) through which a user can performadministration functions. The fabric manager GUI can incorporatevisualization tools that allow a user to monitor and control fabricresources. For example, in an embodiment, a user can view serverconnections, configuration settings and performance statistics forservers across the fabric through the fabric interface. Other examplesof fabric functionality that can be monitored and/or managed through thefabric manger GUI include discovering inter-subnet fabric topology,viewing visual representations of these topologies, creating fabricprofiles (e.g., virtual machine fabric profiles), and building andmanagement of a fabric manager database that can store fabric profiles,metadata, configuration settings and other data required by, and relatedto, the network fabric. In accordance with an embodiment, the fabricmanager database is a fabric-level database.

In addition, the fabric manager can define legal inter-subnetconnectivity in terms of which subnets are allowed to communicate viawhich router ports using which partition numbers. In accordance with anembodiment, the fabric manager is a centralized fabric managementutility. The above examples are not meant to be limiting.

In accordance with an embodiment, some of the fabric manager'sfunctionality can be initiated by a user, and other functionality can beabstracted from the user, or be automated (e.g., some functionality maybe performed by the fabric manager upon startup, or at otherpredetermined events).

In an exemplary embodiment of a management event, a user may initiate,at the fabric manger interface, a configuration change directed towardsa network fabric device. After receiving the configuration changerequest, the fabric manager may, in turn, ensure that the configurationchange request is properly carried out. For example, the fabric managermay communicate the request to the device and ensure that theconfiguration change is written to the device's configuration. In oneembodiment, the physical device acknowledges to the fabric manager thatthe configuration change has successfully completed. In accordance withan embodiment, the fabric manager may then update the interface to givea visual confirmation that the request has been carried out. Further,the fabric manager may persist the configuration of the device to thefabric manager database, e.g., for disaster recovery or other purposes.

In accordance with an embodiment, the fabric manager can have otherinterfaces, such as a command line interface, that includes some, all,or more functionality than the GUI.

Fabric-Level Resource Domains

As discussed above, a fabric manager can allow users to performadministrative tasks throughout the network fabric through an interfaceof the fabric manager. In accordance with an embodiment, an additionalfunction of the fabric manager is facilitation of hierarchicalrole-based access control. In an embodiment, role-based access controlis achieved through fabric-level resource domains.

In accordance with an embodiment, role-based access control is based onthe concept of fabric users. Access from both human administrators andexternal management applications can represent an authenticated contextthat defines legal operations on all or a subset of the fabricinfrastructure or fabric resources. For example, a user can berepresented in the fabric by a user profile. That is, within the fabrica user can be defined by creating a profile of the user and assigningattributes to the profile. A user profile can be assigned a usernameattribute, and a password attribute, where the username is unique withinthe fabric, thereby uniquely identifying the user. Further, the userprofile may be associated with certain roles defined in the fabric thatassign certain access levels to different resources within the fabric.In accordance with an embodiment, setting up user profiles can beaccomplished through the fabric manager interface. All or part of theuser profile can be stored in the fabric manger database. Moreover, inan embodiment, the fabric manager can integrate with well-known userdirectories, such as Microsoft's® Active Directory or LDAP directories,or with, e.g., the RADIUS networking protocol for remote authentication.

In accordance with an embodiment, the fabric manager can manage fabricresources that it discovers through fabric-level resource domains (alsoreferred to as “resource domains”, or simply “domains” herein). Aresource domain is a logical grouping of fabric resources defined at thefabric level. Fabric resources include both physical and logicalresources. Some examples of resources include fabric devices (such asHCAs, physical nodes, and switches), fabric profiles (such as virtualmachine fabric profiles, and user profiles), virtual machines, clouds,and I/O modules, among others.

In accordance with an embodiment, all fabric resources discovered andmanaged by the fabric manager reside in the default domain, which existsby default (i.e., without the need to setup or configure it) in thefabric, and can be accessed through the fabric manager interface. Thedefault domain is the highest level domain—that is, it is the parentdomain to all other resource domains, and all other resource domainsexist within the default domain. The default domain is associated with afabric-level administrator, which also exists by default, and isconfigured with administrative privileges in the default domain bydefault.

In accordance with an embodiment, resource domains represent ahierarchical form of resource management. For example, the process ofconfiguring and managing the default domain is available only to thefabric-level administrator. However, child domains can be created withinthe default domain by the fabric-level administrator. For instance, thefabric-level administrator can create a child domain and can add domainresources to the child domain. Additionally the fabric-leveladministrator can create domain-level “domain admin” users and add(i.e., associate) the domain admin users to the child domain. Making thedomain admin user a member of the resource domain allows the domainadmin user to manage the child domain and its contained subset of thefabric resources. In accordance with an embodiment, the domain adminuser cannot manage resources outside of the child domain (i.e.,resources at a parallel or a higher level than the domain admin isassociated with). However the domain admin can manage resourcescontained in resource domains that have been created as child domains ofthe resource domain. In accordance with an embodiment, the fabricmanager is responsible for providing the security that ensures thatresource domain boundaries are strictly enforced.

FIG. 11 shows the hierarchical structure of resource domains. As shown,default domain 1102 exists within network fabric 1100. Fabric-leveladministrator 1110 has access rights to manage fabric-level resources1112, 1124, and 1134. Fabric-level administrator 1110 can also createand administer new resource domains within default domain 1102.Fabric-level administrator 1110 has created resource domain 1120 and1130, and corresponding domain-level domain admin users 1122 and 1132.Domain admin user 1122 has access rights to manage fabric resources 1124(assigned to resource domain 1120 by fabric-level administrator 1110),but has no access rights to manage fabric resources 1112 (at a higherlevel) or domain resources 1134 (at a parallel level). Likewise, Domainadmin user 1132 has access rights to manage fabric resources 1134(assigned to resource domain 1130 by Fabric-level administrator 1110),but has no access rights to manage fabric resources 1112 (at a higherlevel) or domain resources 1124 (at a parallel level).

Admin Partitions

In accordance with an embodiment, a resource domain can be representedat the subnet level by an administration, or “admin” partition (as theyare referred to herein). An admin partition represents a groupmembership which grants access rights at the subnet level to subnetresources. Members of an admin partition are considered privileged, inthat the members have access rights to any subnet resources that areassociated with the admin partition, in accordance with an embodiment.At the fabric manager level, an admin partition is associated with aresource domain and a corresponding domain admin user. Thus, user-roleseparation can be ensured in multi-tenant environments at the subnetlevel. Further, resource domain membership can be correlated with adminpartition membership, so that resources that are members of an adminpartition that is associated with a particular resource domain are alsomembers of the resource domain.

In accordance with an embodiment, an admin partition can be defined atthe subnet level in the same way that a data partition is defined, butwith an additional attribute specifying that the partition being createdis an admin partition. Like data partitions (discussed in detail,above), admin partitions can be created by an administrator through thefabric manager interface, in accordance with an embodiment. In anembodiment, the fabric manager can support an “admin partition” flag asan optional parameter during the creation of a partition. If selected bythe creating administrator, the fabric manager will include theadditional attribute specifying that the newly created partition is anadmin partition, and will be treated as an admin partition by the fabricmanager and the local master subnet manager.

In accordance with an embodiment, the fabric manager can be configuredto automatically create a corresponding admin partition for eachresource domain that is created, and associate the automatically createdpartition with the corresponding resource domain. In such an embodiment,when fabric-level resources are added to the resource domain, the fabricmanager also associates them with the admin partition that wasautomatically created and associated with the resource domain. Thus,resources added to the resource domain will have subnet-level accessrights to each other upon being added to the resource domain, with nofurther action being taken by the administrator (e.g., the fabric-leveladministrator or the domain admin).

Moreover, in accordance with an embodiment, entire subnets of thenetwork can represent a special resource domain in a domain hierarchythat has a top-level domain (e.g., the default domain). For instance, ina domain hierarchy, where the default domain represents the top-leveldomain, each subnet of the network fabric can then be recognized by thefabric manager as a child domain of the default domain. Recognition ofentire subnets as child domains of a top-level domain can be configuredas default behavior of the fabric manager, or these default domains canbe manually defined by an administrator. Here again, in order to haveuser role separation and enforcement of domain boundaries and resourceassociations at the subnet level, admin partitions corresponding toentire-subnet resource domains can be defined. In accordance with anembodiment, an admin partitions that is defined in a subnet and includeseach resource in that subnet (as either a member, or associated with theadmin partition) can be termed a “domain global” admin partition, sincein this configuration, every resource in the subnet would have accessrights to every other resource.

In accordance with an embodiment, an admin partition can be transparentto a domain admin. As noted above, a domain global admin partition canbe created automatically for a resource domain at the fabric managerlevel, and then all resources assigned to or created within the scope ofthis domain can automatically be associated with the corresponding adminpartition. In another embodiment, however, the domain admin canexplicitly create different admin partitions within the relevantresource domain, and then resources within the domain can be explicitlyassociated with the explicitly created admin partition instead of withthe admin partition that was created by default for the resource domain.

In accordance with an embodiment, the fabric manager can support thecreation of both shared and private admin partitions. Admin partitionscreated by a fabric-level administrator in the default domain can beshared partitions that can be made available to individual resourcedomains. Admin partitions created by a domain admin (i.e., a user withcredentials associated with a specific resource domain) in the domain inwhich the domain admin is a member can be private partitions associatedwith and available only to the specific resource domain in whose contextthe admin partitions were created.

In accordance with an embodiment, end-ports of HCAs and vHCAs can bemembers of an admin partition, just as they can be members of a datapartition. Admin partitions are differentiated from data partitions,however, in that admin partitions can be associated with other subnetresources, in accordance with an embodiment. For example, a datapartition can be associated with an admin partition. Further, an adminpartition can be associated with another admin partition, as a child oras a parent, thus making admin partitions a hierarchical concept andable to correspond with the hierarchy of the resource domains they areassociated with, in accordance with an embodiment.

As a technical matter, end-ports of HCAs (and vHCAs) can be referred toas “members” of partitions, in traditional terminology, and otherresources can be “associated with” admin partitions, in accordance withan embodiment. The technical differences in these two concepts areexplained below. For convenience and readability, however, this documentmay occasionally, in reference to admin partitions, use the terms“member” and “associated with” interchangeably. Notwithstanding the useof these terms interchangeably, it is to be understood that thetechnical differences between end-port/HCA membership in, and resourceassociation with, admin partitions is meant to be consistently appliedby the reader.

In accordance with an embodiment, an admin partition is defined by aP_Key, just as a data partition is defined. However, while an end-portis aware of the data partitions that it is a member of, it is notnecessary that end-ports be aware of what admin partitions they aremembers of. Thus, in one embodiment, a P_Key defining an admin partitionis not entered in the P_Key table of member end-ports. In this way thecreation of an admin partition does not waste P_Key table entries—whichare a limited resource—if an admin partition is not used for IB packettraffic. In another embodiment, however, an admin partition may functionas both an admin partition and a data partition. In such an embodiment,all P_Key tables of end-ports that are members of the admin partitioncan have a P_Key entry for the admin partition in their respective P_Keytables. In accordance with an embodiment, a data partition may bedefined as any partition that is not also an admin partition.

In accordance with an embodiment, a data partition can be associatedwith one or more admin partitions. For example, a data partition, beingdefined by a P_Key value, can be associated with an admin partition thatis defined by its own distinct P_Key value. Moreover, the data partitioncan be associated with a second admin partition defined by yet anotherdistinct P_Key value. In accordance with an embodiment, the associationof a data partition with a specific admin partition can define themaximum membership level for end-ports that are members of the specificadmin partition.

As noted above, an admin partition represents a group membership whichgrants access rights to subnet resources. In accordance with anembodiment, any end-port member of an admin partition has access rightsto any subnet resource that is associated with the same admin partitionbased solely on the end-port's membership in the admin partition. Thus,any end-port that is a member of an admin partition has access rights toany data partition that is associated with that same admin partition.Notably, this does not necessarily mean that the member end-port is amember of the associated data partition, but that it has access rightsto the associated data partition, and therefore could be a member of thedata partition.

Such a scheme obviates the need for administrators to grant end-portsaccess to, e.g., data partitions by manually including the datapartition's P_Key in the P_Key table of the end-port. In an embodiment,when an end-port is initialized in the subnet, the master subnet managercan query a data store (e.g., an admin partition registry, as discussedbelow) that holds admin partition definitions (e.g., P_Keys), andrelationships that define membership in the defined admin partitions andthat define associations with the defined admin partitions, to determinewhich admin partitions the end-port is a member of. The subnet managercan then further check to see if there are any data partitionsassociated with the admin partitions of which the end-port is a member.If the SM finds that 1) the end-port is a member of an admin partition,and 2) that that admin partition is associated with a data partition,then the SM can automatically place the P_Key of the associated datapartition in the P_Key table of the end-port, thereby automaticallygranting the end-port access to the data partition. Thus, the adminpartition represents a simpler, more scalable solution than manualpartition mapping by administrators.

FIG. 12 shows an exemplary network fabric having both admin partitionsand data partitions. As shown in FIG. 12, admin partitions 1230, 1240,and 1250 have been defined within the fabric. Nodes A-E 1201-1205, arephysically connected to the fabric by their respective HCAs 1211-1215.Additionally, each HCA is a member of at least one admin partition. HCA1211 and HCA 1214 are members of admin partition 1230. HCA 1211 is alsoa member of admin partition 1240, along with HCAs 1212 and 1213. HCA1213 is, additionally, a member of admin partition 1250, along with HCA1215.

With further reference to FIG. 12, and in accordance with an embodiment,data partitions 1232, 1242, and 1252 have been defined within thefabric. Data partition 1232 is associated with admin partition 1230,data partition 1242 is associated with admin partition 1240, and datapartition 1252 is associated with admin partition 1250. In accordancewith an embodiment, HCA 1211 and HCA 1214 have access rights tomembership in data partition 1232 based on their membership in adminpartition 1230. Likewise, HCAs 1211-1213 have access rights tomembership in data partition 1242 based on their membership in adminpartition 1240. Moreover, HCAs 1213 and 1215 have access rights tomembership in data partition 1252 based on their membership in adminpartition 1250.

In accordance with an embodiment, admin partitions can also be used todetermine whether a vHCA can be registered with the virtual function ofa physical HCA. A vHCA describes a host channel adapter which is plannedand configured for a specific virtual machine (VM), in accordance withan embodiment. A vHCA differs from a virtual function (VF) in that avHCA migrates with a VM, while a VF stays with the physical adapter. Asdiscussed above, however, both physical HCAs and vHCAs (and, at a lowerlevel, the end-ports of these (v)HCAs) can be members of adminpartitions. Thus, in accordance with an embodiment, admin partitionmembership can be used by the SM to determine whether a request from aphysical HCA to register a vHCA with a virtual function of therequesting physical HCA is permissible.

FIG. 13 shows an exemplary network fabric having HCAs and vHCAs asmembers of admin partitions. As shown in FIG. 13, subnet 1302 is part ofnetwork fabric 1300. HCA 1310, 1324, 1332, and 1344 represent physicalHCAs physically connected through their respective end-ports to networkfabric 1300 in subnet 1302. HCA 1310 is associated with physicalfunction (PF) 1312 and with virtual functions (VFs) 1314 and 1316. HCA1324 is associated with PF 1326 and with VFs 1328 and 1329. HCA 1332 isassociated with PF 1334 and with VFs 1336 and 1338. HCA 1344 isassociated with PF 1346 and with VFs 1348 and 1349. Further, vHCA 1320is depicted as registered with VF 1314, and associated with Virtualmachine (VM) 1318 (i.e., VM 1318 obtains access to network fabric 1300through vHCA 1320, and ultimately through physical HCA 1310). vHCA 1340is registered VF 1337, and associated with VM 1338.

With continued reference to FIG. 13, as shown, HCAs 1310 and 1324, andvHCA 1320 are members of admin partition 1350. Additionally, HCA 1332and 1344, and vHCA 1340 are members of admin partition 1360.Consequently, vHCA 1320 can be legally registered with VF 1314 or 1316of HCA 1310, or with VF 1328 or 1329 of HCA 1324, by virtue of the factthat HCA 1310 and 1324, and vHCA 1320 are each members of adminpartition 1350. Similarly, vHCA 1340 can be legally registered with VF1336 or 1338 of HCA 1330, or with VF 1348 or 1349 of HCA 1344, by virtueof the fact that HCA 1332 and 1324, and vHCA 1340 are each members ofadmin partition 1360.

As noted above, the fabric-level fabric database holds informationrelated to the fabric and fabric resources, and is managed by the fabricmanager. In accordance with an embodiment, the fabric database can have“complete knowledge” of the fabric resource inventory (i.e., everyresource that is a part of the network fabric is represented, at least,by a record held in the fabric database). Further, the access rights andname spaces associated with each resource in the fabric can be eitherstored in the fabric database, or derived from information andrelationships contained in the fabric database.

For example, in accordance with an embodiment, information pertaining toadmin partition membership and/or resource association with an adminpartition can be stored in the fabric database. The tables holding thisinformation and the relationships that link these tables together can bea subset of the fabric database, and can be referred to as the adminpartition registry. In accordance with an embodiment, the adminpartition registry is a collection of admin partition group resources.For example, an admin partition group within the admin partitionregistry can be a collection of HCA members (including vHCAs) andassociated resources of a particular admin partition, where the group islooked up by the P_Key that defines the particular admin partition.Moreover, admin partition group members and associated resources can belooked up in the registry using keys such as GUID or vGUID for memberHCAs or vHCAs, respectively, or P_Keys for associated data partitions.Relationships between the P_Key of an admin partition and the uniqueidentifier of members or associated resources define membership orassociation, respectively, in the admin partition, and are maintained bythe admin partition registry, and by the fabric database, at a higherlevel.

In accordance with an embodiment, all or part of the admin partitionregistry may be held as records in a cache of the SM. For instance,records of the admin partition registry that correspond to resources ofa particular subnet can be duplicated in a cache in a resident memory ofa subnet manager (e.g., the master subnet manager) of the particularsubnet. The admin partition registry records can either be retrieved(i.e., copied) from the fabric database by the SM (e.g., when the SMboots), or be placed in the cache before it is persisted to the fabricdatabase. The cache can be a volatile or non-volatile memory. Regardlessof when the registry records are placed in the cache, synchronizationcan then occur between the cached copy of the admin partition registryand the copy of the admin partition registry found in a fabric-leveldata base.

By holding all, or a subnet-relevant part, of the admin partitionregistry in a high-speed cache on the SM, rather than retrieving adminpartition information from a persisted state (i.e., from the fabricdatabase) every time a query is received, the lookup of admin partitioninformation can impose minimal overhead on the SM. This can beespecially important during subnet initialization, when access rightsamong subnet resources are being automatically assigned.

In accordance with an embodiment, logical names or identifiers can beassigned to resources within a resource domain (by, e.g., thefabric-level or domain-level admin user). These logical names can beprivate to the resource domain. The fabric manager, through the fabricdatabase, can create relationships that map unique identifiers usedwithin the fabric (e.g., vGUIDs and P_Keys) to logical or symbolic namesgiven to resources within the fabric.

For instance, the fabric database, in accordance with an embodiment, canstore records of resources, and domain membership and/or admin partitionmembership of resources. Logical names can be assigned to the resourcesupon discovery of the resources by the fabric manger. These names can belinked to the unique identifiers of the fabric resources in the fabricdatabase. Moreover, the fabric manager can keep track of each resource'smembership in resource domains and admin partitions through arelationship in the fabric manager database. With these records andrelationships, the fabric manager can allow like logical names acrossdisparate resource domains and admin partitions. In accordance with anembodiment, the logical domain name scheme can reflect the hierarchy ofthe resource domain or domains that a particular domain resource is amember of. In such an embodiment, logical resource names can be uniqueto the highest level resource domain that the resource is a member of.

In accordance with an embodiment, the identifier of a resource in thefabric—regardless of what the identifier is—can be unique within thescope of the admin partition. Then, global uniqueness (i.e., at thefabric level) can be achieved by prefixing the resource name with thecorresponding admin partition.

FIG. 14 shows an exemplary network fabric having both resource domainsand admin partitions. As shown in FIG. 14, fabric manager 1402 isexecuting on network fabric 1400. In accordance with an embodiment,fabric manager 1402 can execute from a node (not shown) of networkfabric 1400. Fabric manager 1402 is administered by fabric-leveladministrator 1404, and includes fabric manager database 1414. Adminpartition registry 1416 is part of fabric manager database 1414, as is alogical name table 1418.

With continued reference to FIG. 14, subnet 1420 is defined withinnetwork fabric 1400. Subnet manager 1422 is associated with subnet 1420,and, in accordance with an embodiment, performs the semantic runtimeoperations required by subnet 1420 for operation in network fabric 1400.Setup and administrative tasks required by subnet 1420 can be performedby fabric-level administrator 1404 and fabric manager 1402.

Node 1444, 1454, 1474 and 1484 are part of subnet 1420. HCA 1446 isassociated with node 1444, and includes PF 1448 and VFs 1450 and 1452.Similarly, HCA 1456 is associated with node 1454, and includes PF 1458and VFs 1460 and 1462. HCA 1476 is associated with node 1474, andincludes PF 1478 and VFs 1480 and 1482. Further, HCA 1486 is associatedwith node 1484, and includes PF 1488 and VFs 1490 and 1492. VM 1440 isexecuting on node 1444, and VM 1470 is executing on node 1474. vHCA 1442has been planned and configured for VM 1440, is associated with VM 1440,and is registered with virtual function 1452 of HCA 1446. vHCA 1472 hasbeen planned and configured for VM 1470, is associated with VM 1470, andis registered with virtual function 1482 of HCA 1476.

In accordance with an embodiment, HCAs 1446, 1456, 1476, and 1486 areconsidered domain resources, and a record of each is stored in fabricmanager database 1414. The record can include an identifier, such as aGUID, which is used to identify the HCA resource in the fabric. Further,vHCAs 1442 and 1472 are also considered domain resources, and a recordof each is stored in fabric manager database 1414. The record caninclude an identifier, such as a GUID, which is used to identify thevHCA.

With further reference to FIG. 14, and in accordance with an embodiment,resource domain 1410 and resource domain 1412 have been created withinfabric manager 1402. In accordance with an embodiment, fabric-leveladministrator 1404 is responsible for the creation of resource domain1410 and resource domain 1412. Additionally, domain admin 1406 is adomain-level administrator associated with resource domain 1410.Likewise, domain admin 1408 is a domain-level administrator associatedwith resource domain 1412. In accordance with an embodiment,fabric-level administrator 1404 can create domain admins 1406 and 1408,as admins of their respective resource domains, adhering to thehierarchical nature of resource domains.

In accordance with an embodiment, admin partition 1424 and adminpartition 1426 have been defined in subnet 1420. Admin partition 1424 isassociated with resource domain 1410, and admin partition 1426 isassociated with resource domain 1412.

As shown in FIG. 14, vHCA 1442 and HCAs 1446 and 1456 are members ofresource domain 1410. In accordance with an embodiment, because adminpartition 1424 is associated with resource domain 1410, when vHCA 1442and HCAs 1446 and 1456 are added as members of resource domain 1410,they also become members of admin partition 1424, and a relationship iscreated in admin partition registry 1416 between the P_Key definingadmin partition 1424 and the identifiers of HCAs 1446 and 1456, and vHCA1442. In accordance with an embodiment, this relationship defines HCAs1446 and 1456, and vHCA 1442 as members of admin partition 1424.

Likewise, vHCA 1472 and HCAs 1476 and 1486 are members of resourcedomain 1412. In accordance with an embodiment, because admin partition1426 is associated with resource domain 1410, when vHCA 1472 and HCAs1466 and 1486 are added as members of resource domain 1412, they alsobecome members of admin partition 1426, and a relationship is created inadmin partition registry 1416 between the P_Key defining admin partition1426 and the identifiers of HCAs 1476 and 1486, and vHCA 1472. Inaccordance with an embodiment, this relationship defines HCAs 1476 and1486, and vHCA 1472 as members of admin partition 1426.

As noted above, VM 1440 (including vHCA 1442), node 1444 (including HCA1446) and node 1454 (including HCA 1456) are members of resource domain1410, in accordance with an embodiment. In an embodiment of theinvention, fabric-level administrator 1404 is responsible for addingnode 1444 and node 1454 to resource domain 1410. For example,fabric-level administrator 1404 can, through the interface of fabricmanager 1402, add nodes 1444 and 1454 to resource domain 1410. Oncefabric-level administrator 1404 has added nodes 1444 and 1454 toresource domain 1410, domain admin 1406 can perform administrative taskson nodes 1444 and 1454. In keeping with the hierarchical scheme ofresource domains, however, domain admin 1406 could not performadministrative tasks on nodes 1444 and 1454 before they were added toresource domain 1410 (i.e., while they were a member of the higher-leveldefault domain (not shown). Further, in accordance with an embodiment,domain admin 1408 cannot perform administrative tasks on nodes 1444 and1454, because nodes 1444 and 1454 are members of a parallel-levelresource domain that domain admin 1408 is not associated with.

With continued reference to FIG. 14, and in accordance with anembodiment, admin partitions 1424 and 1426 have been defined withinsubnet 1420. In keeping with the hierarchical scheme of resourcedomains, in one embodiment admin partitions 1424 and 1426 were definedby fabric-level administrator 1404. In another embodiment, domain admin1406 defined admin partition 1424, and domain admin 1408 defined adminpartition 1426. In accordance with an embodiment, admin partition 1424is associated with resource domain 1410, and admin partition 1426 isassociated with resource domain 1412. As discussed above, adminpartitions 1424 and 1426 represent resource domains 1410 and 1412,respectively, at the subnet level, in accordance with an embodiment. Inaddition to being associated with their respective resource domains,admin partitions 1424 and 1426 are associated with domain admins 1406and 1408, respectively (i.e., the corresponding admin user of theresource domains each of the admin partitions is associated with). Asnoted above, this association between admin partitions and domain-leveladmins can ensure user-role separation in multi-tenant environments atthe subnet level, in accordance with an embodiment.

Data partitions 1428 and 1430 have been defined in subnet 1420, inaccordance with an embodiment. In keeping with the hierarchical schemeof resource domains, in one embodiment data partitions 1428 and 1430were defined by fabric-level administrator 1404. In another embodiment,domain admin 1406 defined data partition 1428, and domain admin 1408defined data partition 1430. As shown in FIG. 14, data partition 1428 isassociated with admin partition 1424, and data partition 1430 isassociated with admin partition 1426. Moreover, as noted above and shownin FIG. 14, HCAs 1446 and 1456 and vHCA 1442 are members of adminpartition 1424. Consequently, in accordance with an embodiment, HCAs1446 and 1456 and vHCA 1442 have access permissions to data partition1428 because they are members of an admin partition (i.e., adminpartition 1424) that data partition 1428 is associated with.

In accordance with an embodiment, when data partition 1428 is associatedwith admin partition 1424, a relationship between the identifier of datapartition 1428 (e.g., the P_Key of data partition 1428) and the P_Key ofadmin partition 1424 is created in the admin partition registry 1416.This relationship defines data partition 1428 as associated with adminpartition 1424. Likewise, when data partition 1430 is associated withadmin partition 1426 a relationship between the identifier of datapartition 1430 (e.g., the P_Key of data partition 1430) and the P_Key ofadmin partition 1426 is created in the admin partition registry 1416.This relationship defines data partition 1430 as associated with adminpartition 1426.

In accordance with an embodiment, if a request were received from eitherof HCAs 1446 and 1456 or vHCA 1442 to join data partition 1428, SM 1422could check with admin partition registry 1416, and find that HCAs 1446and 1456 and vHCA 1442 are members of admin partition 1424, and thatdata partition 1428 is associated with admin partition 1424. Then, SM1422 could allow HCAs 1446 and 1456 and vHCA 1442 to become members ofdata partition 1428 based on HCAs 1446 and 1456 and vHCA 1442 beingmembers of admin partition 1424 and data partition 1428 being associatedwith admin partition 1424. No manual mapping from either fabric-leveladministrator 1404 or domain-level administrator 1406 would be necessaryto allow HCAs 1446 and 1456 and vHCA 1442 to join data partition 1428.

Moreover, vHCA 1442 can be registered with either of VF 1452 or 1450 ofHCA 1446, or either of VF 1462 or 1460 of HCA 1456, because HCAs 1446and 1456 and vHCA 1442 are members of admin partition 1424 (vHCA 1442 isdepicted as registered with VF 1452). Here again, SM 1422 could checkwith admin partition registry 1416, and find that HCAs 1446 and 1456 andvHCA 1442 are members of admin partition 1424. Upon finding that HCAs1446 and 1456 and vHCA 1442 are members of admin partition 1424, SM 1422could allow registration of vHCA 1442 with any of VFs 1452, 1450 1462,and 1460 without intervention from any fabric user.

Virtual Machine Fabric Profiles

As discussed above, virtual machines (VMs) can be employed in a fabric,such as an IB fabric in order to improve efficient hardware resourceutilization and scalability. Yet, live migration of virtual machines(VMs), still remains an issue due to the addressing and routing schemesused in these solutions. In accordance with an embodiment, methods andsystems provide for facilitating pre-defined, highly available, andphysical-location independent virtual machine fabric profiles that cansupport addressing schemes aimed at overcoming such VM migration issues.In accordance with an embodiment, VM fabric profiles enable centralizedsetup and configuration administration for VMs using fabricconnectivity, and support optimized VM migration for VMs based onSR-IOV. In accordance with an embodiment, a VM fabric profile representsa single, centralized repository of detailed fabric configurationinformation for a virtual machine. A database associated with the fabricmanager (e.g., the fabric database) can persist the information thatmakes up a VM fabric profile.

In accordance with an embodiment, a VM fabric profile can be identifiedin a network fabric, such as an IB fabric, through a virtual machineidentifier (VM-id). In one embodiment, the VM-id is a unique 128-bitnumber that is a universally unique identifier (UUID), that can beunique across the entire fabric. However, uniqueness of the VM-id isonly necessary across differently administered VM manager domains (e.g.,a VM-id can be unique within an admin partition). Therefore, in otherembodiments, the VM-id can be some other appropriate type of ID that isat least unique across such domains. In accordance with an embodiment,all management entities, at either the fabric or the subnet level, lookup information about a VM fabric profile by referencing the VM-id of theprofile.

FIG. 15 shows an exemplary database structure for storing VM fabricprofile information. FIG. 15 depicts several tables in a traditionalrelational database design. However, any suitable data structure can beused to store VM fabric profile data (e.g., a flat-file table, or adelimited structure, etc.). In FIG. 15, an asterisk (*) denotes a keyvalue. FIG. 15 depicts VM fabric profile data as being part of a largerfabric database 1500, but in other embodiments, VM profile data may becontained in its own database, or may be a separate database with accessto fabric database 1500.

As shown in FIG. 15, the contents of a VM fabric profile may include,but are not limited to: a virtual machine identifier (VM-id) 1502 usedas a lookup key; a logical name 1504 for ease of use and improvedquality in administration of the fabric; a profile type 1506 used todistinguish between, e.g., a VM fabric profile and other profiles thathave been defined for the fabric; a profile ID 1508—a unique id withinthe set of all profiles defined for the fabric; and a content updateenumerator (CUE) 1510, which can be a sequence number for a profilewhere the highest sequence represents the most recent update. As shownin FIG. 15, this VM fabric profile content can be stored in a VM profiletable 1512, where the VM-id acts as a unique key for identifying each VMfabric profile.

As discussed above, virtual HCAs (vHCAs) may be used in conjunction withthe virtual functions of a physical HCA to provide network access toVMs. In accordance with an embodiment, each VM fabric profile is alsoassociated with at least one vHCA. A vHCA can be planned and configuredfor a specific VM, and this configuration can also be included in andstored with the fabric profile of the VM for which the vHCA isconfigured. The configured vHCA can then migrate with the virtualmachine—in contrast to virtual functions, which can be defined by, andcan stay with, the physical HCA. With further reference to FIG. 15, avHCA can be represented in the fabric manager database as a uniquecombination of a VM-id 1502 and a vHCA Instance ID 1514. Moreover, thiscombination can be stored in a vHCA table related to the VM Profiletable 1512 through the VM-id key 1502.

Like a physical HCA, a vHCA can have a plurality of (virtual) ports. Inaccordance with an embodiment, these virtual ports can act as end-portsin the network environment, just as physical ports do. As an example,all end-ports, including vHCA ports, can be assigned a GUID (e.g., a64-bit GUID as used in an IB network). This GUID can be used to requesta LID destination address from the routing tables of a SM. In accordancewith an embodiment, a virtual GUID (vGUID) can represent the currentfabric address of each vHCA port. In one embodiment, vGUIDs can beassigned to the vHCA ports from a list of GUIDs allocated to, and storedwith, the VM fabric profile, as discussed above. vGUIDs can be assignedto a fabric profile from a dedicated pool of GUIDs owned and controlledby the fabric manager in accordance with fabric manager GUID policy. Forinstance, a free and fabric-wide unique vGUID can be allocated to a vHCAconfigured for a VM when the fabric profile is created in the fabricmanager.

With continued reference to FIG. 15, and in accordance with anembodiment, a vHCA port can be represented in the fabric managerdatabase as the unique combination of a vHCA Instance ID 1514, and avGUID 1522. A vHCA configuration can also include a vHCA port number1520. This configuration can be stored in the vHCA port table 1518,which can be related the vHCA table through the vHCA Instance ID*1514key, and ultimately to the VM profile table 1512 through the VM-id key1502.

In accordance with an embodiment, a vHCA can be a member of both datapartitions and admin partitions. Partition membership of a vHCA can berepresented in a VM fabric profile by relationships in the fabricdatabase linking the vHCA record to partitions (both admin and datapartitions) that the vHCA is a member off. In one embodiment, forexample, the vGUID key 1522 can be related to tables (not shown)containing data and admin partitions P_Keys that have been defined inthe network fabric. In an embodiment, the vGUID key is linked, through arelationship, to the admin partition registry (discussed above). In anembodiment, there is alternatively, or also, a relationship linking theadmin partition registry to a vHCA Instance ID 1514. These relationshipsallow fabric components to identify which data and admin partitions thevHCA is a member of.

FIG. 15 has been provided for exemplary purposes only, and one skilledin the art will appreciate that there are numerous ways to design andmanage the storage of the data that make up a VM fabric profile.Further, the foregoing list of VM fabric profile contents is meant to beexemplary, not limiting, and other embodiments of virtual machine fabricprofiles may include more, less, or other contents. In accordance withan embodiment, the database components depicted in FIG. 15 can be a partof a much larger fabric manager database that holds other relevantinformation about the fabric and can be interrelated with other tablesto enhance the functionality of the fabric manager and other fabriccomponents.

In one embodiment, a user interacts with virtual machine fabric profilesthrough an interface of the fabric manager. For instance, a user maycreate, edit, and delete VM fabric profiles through the fabric manager.In accordance with an embodiment, some of the fabric profile informationis supplied by a user creating or editing the VM fabric profile (e.g.,the logical name of the VM fabric profile), while other of theinformation is generated or supplied by the fabric manager or the localSM of the subnet in which the fabric manager is being created (e.g., theVM-id, the vHCA instance ID, or the vGUID).

In accordance with an embodiment, the creation of the virtual machinefabric profile can take place in a management context that representsadministrative privileges of the fabric resources the VM fabric profileis associated with. For example, a domain admin creates a VM fabricprofile for use by nodes having HCAs that are a member of the sameresource domain(s) (and the same admin partition(s)) as the vHCAs beingconfigured for the VM fabric profile. The created VM fabric profile isconsidered a (logical) resource, and a member of the resource domain inwhich it is created. Thus, by virtue of being a member of the same adminpartition, the vHCA of the VM fabric profile has permission to beregistered with any of the VF's of the HCAs that are also members of theresource domain, thereby easing administrative overhead.

In accordance with an embodiment, a fabric-level or domain-leveladministrator user can use a component of the fabric manager termed the“Virtual Machine Manager” (VMM) to set up and configure VM fabricprofiles. VMM can use a fabric REST API in the creation of a VM fabricprofile. A user can access VMM, for example, through a GUI of the fabricmanager. In accordance with an embodiment, the administrative user cansupply certain parameters related to the VM fabric profile (such aslogical name, profile type, and the number of vHCAs that will beassociated with the profile), and other parameters can be automaticallygenerated and assigned by the VMM (such as VM-id, and vGUIDs and vHCAinstance IDs of each vHCA associated with the profile). Other CRUDactions, such as updating and deleting VM fabric profiles can also beavailable to the administrator user through the fabric manager, and VMM,specifically.

In accordance with an embodiment, once all of the parameters necessaryto build a VM fabric profile have been supplied via the VMM, the fabricmanager can create an instance of the VM fabric profile object havingthe attributes specified by the administrator user and VMM, and persistthe VM fabric profile object to the fabric level database.

In accordance with an embodiment, in an operational network fabric, a VMfabric profile can be held as one or multiple records in a cache of aSM. The VM fabric profile can either be retrieved (i.e., copied) fromthe fabric database by the SM (e.g., when the SM boots), or be placed inthe cache before it is persisted to the fabric database. The cache canbe a volatile or non-volatile memory. The VM-id can be used as a key forquerying the cache to retrieve attributes of a specific VM fabricprofile.

By holding the VM fabric profiles in a high-speed cache on the SM ratherthan retrieving them from a persisted state (i.e., from the fabricdatabase) every time a query is received, the lookup of VM fabricprofile attributes can impose minimal overhead on the SM. This isespecially important during VM and host boot-up, when fabric profiledata will be needed to establish which HCAs VMs can and will be pairedwith.

FIG. 16 is a flow chart for making a VM fabric profile available tosubnet resources.

At step 1610, a VM fabric profile including setup parameters andconfiguration of the VM is defined.

At step 1620, the VM fabric profile is stored in a fabric-leveldatabase.

At step 1630, the VM fabric profile is made available through ahigh-speed memory cache on the subnet manager.

At step 1640, VM fabric profile data is returned from the subnet mangerbased on VM-id lookup requests directed to the high-speed memory cache.

Virtual Machine ID and Migration Manager (VIMM)

In accordance with an embodiment, and as discussed above, the subnetmanager and fabric-connected HCAs play an integral role in facilitatingthe above-described advances and efficiencies, such asadmin-partition-to-data-partition mapping, and the management and lookupof VM information through virtual machine fabric profiles. Theseadvances allow for more efficient fabric resource utilization, includingmore efficient use of both administrative resources and hardwareresources. To date, however, the functionality required by SMs in orderto take advantage of the technological advances described herein is notdefined in the IB specification for SMs and/or HCAs. Moreover, networkfabrics controlled by currently available SM software (e.g., OpenSM, orOracle's® NM2 SM) do not support the above-disclosed technology.Therefore, new SM and HCA configurations are needed in order to takeadvantage of the disclosed advances, while still remaining compatiblewith legacy hardware and software, so that gradual implementation of theabove-disclosed technological advances can be achieved.

As discussed above, SMs, through the SM interface, exchange controlpackets, which are referred to as subnet management packets (SMPs), withsubnet management agents (SMAs). The subnet management agents reside onevery IB subnet device (e.g., each HCA can have a resident SMA). Byusing SMPs, the subnet manager is able to discover the fabric, configureend-nodes and switches, and receive notifications from SMAs. Inaccordance with an embodiment, SMs and HCAs can be configured to takeadvantage of the above disclosed technological advances by including aproprietary extension of both the SM and the SMA. A virtual machine IDand migration manager (VIMM) can extend the functionality of SMs.Likewise, a virtual machine ID and migration manager agent (VIMMA) canextend the functionality of SMAs, and in turn, the functionality of HCAs(and vHCAs).

In accordance with an embodiment, VIMM can receive requests for end-portmembership in data partitions and perform the appropriate look-ups inorder to check that the requesting end-port is a member of an adminpartition that is associated with the data partition for whichmembership has been requested (as described above). Moreover, VIMM canmanage requests from a host to start a VM on the host, or migrate a VMto the host, where the VM is defined in a VM fabric profile, and wherethe vHCA of the host can be registered with the VF of an SR-IOV enabledHCA to give the VM network access (as described above).

VIMMA, in accordance with an embodiment, can reside on SR-IOV enabledHCAs and work as an agent of VIMM—in much the same way as the SM and SMAwork together—by acting as a proxy for requests from hyper-privilegedcontrol software on the host (e.g., a hypervisor implemented in Dom0 forLinux, or a Control Domain such as an LDOM in Solaris) to VIMM.Communication between the hyper-privileged control software and VIMMAcan be enabled through a control application programming interface(API).

In one embodiment the VIMMA extension component can be located in theembedded processor of the HCA device and implemented as part of anupdateable firmware of the device, thereby allowing updates to the VIMMAextension components. Additionally, the control API can be implementedas a user-space shared library on top of a physical function (PF) kerneldriver of the HCA device. The shared library can be installed as part ofa generic host stack that can also respond if invoked from a privilegeddomain having access to the PF driver of the HCA. This means that a VM,via a virtual driver will not be able to make function calls to thecontrol API, communicate with VIMMA in the HCA, or access other types ofHCAs.

FIG. 17 shows an exemplary HCA including the control API, in accordancewith an embodiment. HCA 1700 includes PF 1720, VF 1 1730, VF 2 1740, andVF N 1750. Additionally, HCA 1700 includes control circuit 1724. Controlcircuit 1724 can include a processor and a memory (not shown). The VIMMAmodule 1726 executes on control circuit 1724. Hypervisor 1710 is anexample of hyper-privileged control software (implemented, e.g., in Dom0or a Control Domain). Hypervisor 1710 can invoke control API 1722, andhas access to functions exposed by control API 1722.

Dedicated QP for VIMM Traffic

As noted above, SMs and HCAs can be configured to take advantage of theabove-discussed technological advances by including a proprietaryextension to both the SM and the SMA. A virtual machine ID and migrationmanager (VIMM) can extend the functionality of SMs. Likewise, a virtualmachine ID and migration manager agent (VIMMA) can extend thefunctionality of SMAs. Also noted above, SMs, through the SM interface,exchange control packets, which are referred to as subnet managementpackets (SMPs), with SMAs. These SMPs are sent via a dedicated queuepair (QP). In a legacy IB configuration, this dedicated QP is QP0.

The proprietary VIMM/VIMMA extensions—in order to enable advancedfunctionality beyond that currently defined by the IBspecification—further adds a proprietary protocol including additionaltraffic, according to this protocol, between the SM and the SMA. Inaccordance with an embodiment, this additional VIMM related traffic canbe separated from traditional SMPs in order to prevent bottlenecks andsaturation on QP0, and to make the VIMM/VIMMA extensions more robust.Such separation of VIMM/VIMMA traffic away from traditional SMPs on QP0to a dedicated QP allows for scalability and distribution in large IBfabrics.

In accordance with an embodiment, a configurable SMA attribute can allowVIMM/VIMMA protocol traffic to be established outside QP0 traffic flowsand specify which QP number VIMM protocol traffic will be sent and/orreceived on. For example, an attribute called VIMM_QPn (as thisattribute will be referred to, herein) can be included as a configurableattribute of a HCA. This attribute can specify the QP number to be usedin order to communicate with the VIMM extension module, which isco-located with and is an extension of the master SM of the relevant IBsubnet. The value of the attribute can be an integer value, or, e.g., anaggregate number of set bits, where the value corresponds to the QPnumber that the VIMM module of the master SM will send and receive VIMMcommunications (i.e., VIMM protocol messages) on.

The VIMM_QPn can be exposed as a read/write attribute, in accordancewith an embodiment. Requests, in the form of SMPs, can be sent to theSMA of a HCA. These SMPs can request to read the value of the VIMM_QPnattribute (if it is set), or they can write the value of the VIMM_QPnattribute. Thus, during initiation of the subnet (e.g., during a sweepof the subnet by the subnet manager), the master SM can send a requestin the form of an SMP (at this point on QP0—the QP reserved for legacySM/SMA communications) setting the value of the VIMM_QPn attribute tothe numerical value of the QP which will be used by the master SM forVIMM communications. After the value of the VIMM_QPn attribute has beenset, all VIMM communications between the VIMM extension of the master SMand the VIMMA extension of the SMA of the HCA can take place on thespecified QP.

As discussed above, in the case of a HCA having the SR-IOV vSwitcharchitecture, each virtual function of the HCA is a complete virtualHost Channel Adapter (vHCA), meaning that the VM assigned to a VF isassigned a complete set of IB addresses (e.g., GID, GUID, LID) and adedicated QP space in the hardware. In accordance with an embodiment,the VIMM_QPn attribute can represent the QP number that both the PF andeach VF of the HCA will use for VIMM communication with the master SM.

FIG. 18 shows an exemplary HCA including a configurable VIMM_QPnattribute, in accordance with an embodiment. As shown in FIG. 18, hostchannel adapter 1800 includes physical function 1820, and virtualfunction 1 1830, virtual function 2 1840, and virtual function N 1850.HCA 1800 also includes control circuit 1824. Control circuit 1824includes memory 1828, and memory 1828 includes configurable attributeVIMM_QPn 1829. Control circuit 1824 can also include one or moreprocessers (not shown). Further, memory 1828 can include otherconfigurable attributes (not shown). The subnet management agent (SMA)1826 executes on control circuit 1824. The virtual machine ID andmigration manager agent (VIMMA) 1827 also executes on control circuit1824. The VIMMA extension module 1827 operates as an extension to theSMA 1826. VIMMA 1827 can extend the functionality of the SMA 1826 beyondthe functionality included in the IB specification.

With continued reference to FIG. 18, master subnet manager (SM) 1860includes virtual machine ID and migration manager (VIMM) 1862. VIMMextension module 1862 operates as an extension to the SM 1860, and canextend the functionality of the SM 1860 beyond the functionalityincluded in the IB specification. SM 1860 sends subnet managementpackets (SMPs) to SMA 1826 via the network fabric on QP0. As notedabove, QP0 is reserved for such SMPs that carry managementcommunications throughout the subnet. Physical function 1820 and virtualfunctions 1830, 1840, and 1850 each reserve QP0 for managementcommunications (in the form of SMPs and trap packets) to and from masterSM 1860.

In order to prevent bottlenecks and saturation on QP0, and to make theVIMM/VIMMA extensions more robust, VIMM/VIMMA traffic can be segregatedfrom traditional management communications on QP0 to a dedicated QP. TheQP number of such a dedicated QP can be specified by the SM 1860, e.g.,at subnet initiation, by providing a value for configurable VIMM_QPnattribute 1829. For example, master SM 1860, during subnet initiation,can set the value of configurable VIMM_QPn attribute 1829 by providingan SMP to SMA 1826 which contains an integer value (or a representationthereof) and a command to set the value of configurable VIMM_QPnattribute 1829 equal to the integer value. Control circuit 1824, canthereafter reserve the QP number that is equal to the value ofconfigurable VIMM_QPn attribute 1829 as a destination QP for VIMM/VIMMArelated traffic from the HCA 1800 to the SM 1860 (and from each vHCAthat may be registered with a VF of HCA 1800).

For instance, SM 1860 can send an SMP to SMA 1826 specifying that thevalue of configurable VIMM_QPn attribute 1829 be the integer “5”. Oncethe value of configurable VIMM_QPn attribute 1829 is successfully set to“5,” then QP5 will be reserved as the destination QP for VIMM managementtraffic (i.e., VIMM protocol messages) sent from the VIMMA extensionmodule of the SMA to the VIMM extension module of the master SM 1860.

FIG. 19 is a flow chart for reserving a specific QP number forproprietary management communications, in accordance with an embodiment.

At step 1910, a host channel adapter (HCA), including a configurableattribute stored in a memory of the HCA. is provided.

At step 1920, a communication including a number value is received atthe HCA.

At step 1930, the value of the configurable attribute is set to thereceived number value.

At step 1940 the QP having the number that corresponds to the numbervalue of the configurable attribute is reserved for proprietarymanagement communications.

FIG. 20 is a flow chart for reserving a specific queue pair (QP) numberfor proprietary management traffic in a subnet of a network fabric, inaccordance with an embodiment.

At step 2010, a host channel adapter (HCA) is provided, where the hostchannel adapter comprises a control circuit including a processor and amemory, and at least one port operative to connect the HCA to a networkfabric.

At step 2020, a subnet management agent (SMA) that executes on the HCAis provided.

At step 2030, a configurable attribute is stored in the memory of theHCA.

At step 2040 a communication including a number value is received by thesubnet management agent, from a subnet manager of the subnet.

At step 2050, the value of the configurable attribute is set equal tothe received number value.

At step 2060, a QP number is reserved for proprietary managementtraffic, where the QP number corresponds to the set number value of theconfigurable attribute.

At step 2070, proprietary network management traffic is sent andreceived on the reserved QP number.

Many features of the present invention can be performed in, using, orwith the assistance of hardware, software, firmware, or combinationsthereof. Consequently, features of the present invention may beimplemented using a processing system (e.g., including one or moreprocessors).

Features of the present invention can be implemented in, using, or withthe assistance of a computer program product which is a storage medium(media) or computer readable medium (media) having instructions storedthereon/in which can be used to program a processing system to performany of the features presented herein. The storage medium can include,but is not limited to, any type of disk including floppy disks, opticaldiscs, DVD, CD-ROMs, microdrive, and magneto-optical disks, ROMs, RAMs,EPROMs, EEPROMs, DRAMs, VRAMs, flash memory devices, magnetic or opticalcards, nanosystems (including molecular memory ICs), or any type ofmedia or device suitable for storing instructions and/or data.

Stored on any one of the machine readable medium (media), features ofthe present invention can be incorporated in software and/or firmwarefor controlling the hardware of a processing system, and for enabling aprocessing system to interact with other mechanism utilizing the resultsof the present invention. Such software or firmware may include, but isnot limited to, application code, device drivers, operating systems andexecution environments/containers.

Features of the invention may also be implemented in hardware using, forexample, hardware components such as application specific integratedcircuits (ASICs). Implementation of the hardware state machine so as toperform the functions described herein will be apparent to personsskilled in the relevant art.

Additionally, the present invention may be conveniently implementedusing one or more conventional general purpose or specialized digitalcomputer, computing device, machine, or microprocessor, including one ormore processors, memory and/or computer readable storage mediaprogrammed according to the teachings of the present disclosure.Appropriate software coding can readily be prepared by skilledprogrammers based on the teachings of the present disclosure, as will beapparent to those skilled in the software art.

While various embodiments of the present invention have been describedabove, it should be understood that they have been presented by way ofexample, and not limitation. It will be apparent to persons skilled inthe relevant art that various changes in form and detail can be madetherein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.

The present invention has been described above with the aid offunctional building blocks illustrating the performance of specifiedfunctions and relationships thereof. The boundaries of these functionalbuilding blocks have often been arbitrarily defined herein for theconvenience of the description. Alternate boundaries can be defined solong as the specified functions and relationships thereof areappropriately performed. Any such alternate boundaries are thus withinthe scope and spirit of the invention.

The foregoing description of the present invention has been provided forthe purposes of illustration and description. It is not intended to beexhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise forms disclosed. Thebreadth and scope of the present invention should not be limited by anyof the above-described exemplary embodiments. Many modifications andvariations will be apparent to the practitioner skilled in the art. Themodifications and variations include any relevant combination of thedisclosed features. The embodiments were chosen and described in orderto best explain the principles of the invention and its practicalapplication, thereby enabling others skilled in the art to understandthe invention for various embodiments and with various modificationsthat are suited to the particular use contemplated. It is intended thatthe scope of the invention be defined by the following claims and theirequivalents.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of reserving a specific queue pair (QP)number for proprietary management traffic in a subnet of a networkfabric, comprising: providing a host channel adapter, wherein the hostchannel adapter comprises a control circuit including a processor and amemory, and at least one port operative to connect the HCA to thenetwork fabric; providing a subnet management agent that executes on thehost channel adapter; storing a configurable attribute in the memory ofthe host channel adapter; receiving, by the subnet management agent,from a subnet manager of the subnet, a communication including a numbervalue; setting the value of the configurable attribute to the receivednumber value; reserving a QP number for proprietary management traffic,wherein the QP number corresponds to the set number value of theconfigurable attribute; sending and receiving proprietary networkmanagement traffic on the reserved QP number.
 2. The method of claim 1,comprising: providing the subnet manager.
 3. The method of claim 1,wherein the communication is a subnet management packet, and wherein thesubnet management packet includes a command instructing the controlcircuit to set the value of the configurable attribute to the receivednumber value.
 4. The method of claim 3, wherein the subnet managementpacket is received on a queue pair numbered 0 (QP0).
 5. The method ofclaim 3, wherein the subnet management packet is received during a sweepof the subnet by the subnet manager.
 6. The method of claim 3, whereinthe subnet management packet is received during initiation of thesubnet.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein the proprietary networkmanagement traffic is generated, at least in part, by a proprietaryextension to the subnet management agent.
 8. A system for reserving aspecific queue pair (QP) number for proprietary management traffic in asubnet of a network fabric, comprising: a host channel adapter, whereinthe host channel adapter comprises a control circuit including aprocessor and a memory, and at least one port operative to connect thehost channel adapter to the network fabric; a configurable attributestored in the memory of the host channel adapter; and a subnetmanagement agent that executes on the host channel adapter, wherein thesubnet management agent operates to: receive, from a subnet manager ofthe subnet, a communication including a number value; set the value ofthe configurable attribute to the received number value; reserve a QPnumber for proprietary management traffic, wherein the QP numbercorresponds to the set number value of the configurable attribute; andsend and receive proprietary network management traffic on the reservedQP number.
 9. The system of claim 8, wherein the subnet manager isincluded.
 10. The system of claim 8, wherein the communication is asubnet management packet.
 11. The system of claim 10, wherein the subnetmanagement packet includes a command instructing the control circuit toset the value of the configurable attribute to the received numbervalue.
 12. The system of claim 11, wherein the subnet management packetis received on a queue pair numbered 0 (QP0).
 13. The system of claim11, wherein the subnet management packet is received during initiationof the subnet.
 14. The system of claim 8, wherein the proprietarynetwork management traffic is generated, at least in part, by aproprietary extension to the subnet management agent.
 15. Anon-transitory computer readable storage medium, including instructionsstored thereon for reserving a specific queue pair (QP) number forproprietary management traffic in a subnet of a network fabric, whichwhen read and executed by one or more processors of a host channeladapter cause the one or more processors to perform steps comprising:configuring a port of the host channel adapter to be connected to anetwork fabric; providing a subnet management agent that executes on thehost channel adapter; storing a configurable attribute in the memory ofthe host channel adapter; receiving, by the subnet management agent,from a subnet manager of the subnet, a communication including a numbervalue; setting the value of the configurable attribute to the receivednumber value; reserving a QP number for proprietary management traffic,wherein the QP number corresponds to the set number value of theconfigurable attribute; and sending and receiving proprietary networkmanagement traffic on the reserved QP number.
 16. The non-transitorycomputer readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the communicationis a subnet management packet.
 17. The non-transitory computer readablestorage medium of claim 16, wherein the subnet management packetincludes a command instructing the control circuit to set the value ofthe configurable attribute to the received number value.
 18. Thenon-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein thesubnet management packet is received on a queue pair numbered 0 (QP0).19. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 18,wherein the subnet management packet is received during initiation ofthe subnet.
 20. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium ofclaim 15, wherein the proprietary network management traffic isgenerated, at least in part, by a proprietary extension to the subnetmanagement agent.